by Tom Clancy
“They’re both alive, aren’t they? There were only two of them, and they’re both alive. I sent that tape on the helicopter when we searched the yacht. I mean, if they’re both alive, which one did we shoot?”
“Hanged,” Murray said. “They say you hanged one.”
“Wait a minute.” He lifted the phone and punched a button. “Bridge, captain speaking. Send the XO to my stateroom. Thank you.” The phone went back into place, and Wegener looked up. “If it’s all right with you, I want my executive officer to hear this also.”
Murray managed to keep his face impassive. You should have known, Danny, he told himself. They’ve had plenty of time to work out the little details, and Mr. Wegener is nobody’s fool. He’s got a U.S. senator to hide behind, and he handed us two cold-blooded killers. Even without the confession, there’s enough evidence for a capital murder case, and if you trash Wegener, you run the risk of losing that. The prominence of the victim—well, the U.S. Attorney won’t go for it. No chance.... There wasn’t a United States Attorney in all of America who lacked political ambition, and putting these two in the electric chair was worth half a million votes. Murray couldn’t run the risk of screwing this case up. FBI Director Jacobs had been a federal prosecutor, and he’d understand. Murray decided that it might make things a lot easier.
The XO appeared a moment later, and after introductions were exchanged, Bright went on with his version of what the subjects had told the local FBI office. It took about five minutes during which Wegener puffed on his pipe and let his eyes go slightly wide.
“Sir,” the XO told Bright when he was finished. “I’ve heard a couple of good sea stories, but that one’s the all-time champ.”
“It’s my fault,” Wegener grumbled with a shake of the head. “Lettin’ ’em have their pot back.”
“How come nobody noticed what they were smoking?” Murray asked, less with curiosity for the answer than for the skill with which it was delivered. He was surprised when the XO replied.
“There’s an A/C return right outside the brig. We don’t keep a constant watch on prisoners—these were our first, by the way—because that’s supposed to be unduly intimidating or something. Anyway, it’s in our procedure book that we don’t. Besides, we don’t have all that many people aboard that we can spare ’em. What with the smoke getting sucked out, nobody noticed the smell until that night. Then it was too late. When we brought them into the wardroom for questioning—one at a time; that’s in the book, too—they were both kinda glassy-eyed. The first one didn’t talk. The second one did. You have the tape, don’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve seen it,” Bright answered.
“Then you saw that we read them their rights, right off the card we carry, just like it says. But—hung ‘em? Damn. That’s crazy. I mean, that’s really crazy. We don’t—I mean, we can’t. I don’t even know when it was legal to do it.”
“The last time I know about was 1843,” the captain said. “The reason there’s a Naval Academy at Annapolis is because some people got strung up on USS Somers. One of them was the son of the Secretary of War. Supposedly it was an attempted mutiny, but there was quite a stink about it. We don’t hang people anymore,” Wegener concluded wryly. “I’ve been in the service a long time, but I don’t go that far back.”
“We can’t even have a general court-martial,” the XO added. “Not by ourselves, I mean. The manual for that weighs about ten pounds. Gawd, you need a judge, and real lawyers, all that stuff. I’ve been in the service for almost nine years, and I’ve never even seen a real one—just the practice things in law classes at the Academy. All we ever do aboard is Captain’s Mast, and not much of that.”
“Not a bad idea, though. I wouldn’t have minded hanging those sons of bitches,” Wegener observed. It struck Murray as a very strange, and very clever, thing to say. He felt a little sorry for Bright, who’d probably never had a case go this way. In that sense Murray was grateful for his time as legal attaché in London. He understood politics better than most agents.
“Oh?”
“When I was a little kid, they used to hang murderers. I grew up in Kansas. And you know, there weren’t many murders back then. Course, we’re too civilized to do that now, and so we got murders every damned day. Civilized,” Wegener snorted. “XO, did they ever hang pirates like this?”
“I don’t think so. Blackbeard’s crew was tried at Williamsburg—ever been there?—the old courthouse in the tourist part of the place. I remember hearing that they were actually hung where one of the Holiday Inns is. And Captain Kidd was taken home to England for hanging, wasn’t he? Yeah, they had a place called Execution Dock or something like that. So—no, I don’t think they really did it aboard ship, even in the old days. Damn sure we didn’t do it. Christ, what a story.”
“So it never happened,” Murray said, not in the form of a question.
“No, sir, it did not,” Wegener replied. The XO nodded to support his captain.
“And you’re willing to say that under oath.”
“Sure. Why not?”
“If it’s all right with you, I also need to speak to one of your chiefs. It’s the one who ‘assaulted’ the—”
“Is Riley aboard?” Wegener asked the XO.
“Yeah. Him and Portagee were working on something or other down in the goat locker.”
“Okay, let’s go see ’em.” Wegener rose and waved for his visitors to follow.
“You need me, sir? I have some work to do.”
“Sure thing, XO. Thanks.”
“Aye aye. See you gentlemen later,” the lieutenant said, and disappeared around a corner.
The walk took longer than Murray expected. They had to detour around two work parties who were repainting bulkheads. The chiefs’ quarters—called the goat locker for reasons ancient and obscure—was located aft. Riley and Oreza, the two most senior chiefs aboard, shared the cabin nearest the small compartment where they and their peers ate in relative privacy. Wegener got to the open door and found a cloud of smoke. The bosun had a cigar clamped in his teeth while his oversized hands were trying to manipulate a ridiculously small screwdriver. Both men came to their feet when the captain appeared.
“Relax. What the hell you got there?”
“Portagee found it.” Riley handed it over. “It’s a real old one and we’ve been trying to fix it.”
“How does 1778 grab you, sir?” Oreza asked. “A sextant made by Henry Edgworth. Found it in an old junk shop. It might be worth a few bucks if we can get it cleaned up.”
Wegener gave it a close look. “1778, you said?”
“Yes, sir. That makes it one of the oldest-model sextants. The glass is all broke, but that’s easy to fix. I know a museum that pays top dollar for these—but then I might just keep it myself, of course.”
“We got some company,” Wegener said, getting back to business. “They want to talk about the two people we picked up.”
Murray and Bright held up their ID cards. Dan noticed a phone in the compartment. The XO, he realized, might have called to warn them what was coming. Riley’s cigar hadn’t dropped an ash yet.
“No problem,” Oreza said. “What are you guys going to do with the bastards?”
“That’s up to the U.S. Attorney,” Bright said. “We’re supposed to help put the case together, and that means we have to establish what you people did when you apprehended them.”
“Well, you want to talk to Mr. Wilcox, sir. He was in command of the boarding party,” Riley said. “We just did what he told us.”
“Lieutenant Wilcox is on leave,” the captain pointed out.
“What about after you brought them aboard?” Bright asked.
“Oh, that,” Riley admitted. “Okay, I was wrong, but that little cocksucker—I mean, he spit on the captain, sir, and you just don’t do that kinda shit, y’know? So I roughed him up some. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but maybe that little prick oughta have manners, too.”
“That’s not what we’re
here about,” Murray said after a moment. “He says you hanged him.”
“Hung him? What from?” Oreza asked.
“I think you call it the yardarm.”
“You mean—hang, like in, well, hang? Around the neck, I mean?” Riley asked.
“That’s right.”
The bosun’s laugh rumbled like an earthquake. “Sir, if I ever hung somebody, he wouldn’t go around bitchin’ about it the next day.”
Murray repeated the story as he’d heard it, almost word for word. Riley shook his head.
“That’s not the way it’s done, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“You say that the little one said that the last thing he saw was his friend swinging back and forth, right? That ain’t the way it’s done.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“When you hang somebody aboard ship, you tie his feet together and run a downhaul line—you tie that off to the rail or a stanchion so he don’t swing around. You gotta do that, sir. You have something that weight-well, over a hundred pounds—swinging around like that, it’ll break things. So what you do is, you two-block him—that means you run him right up to the block—that’s the pulley, okay?—and you got the downhaul to keep him in place real snug like. Otherwise it just ain’t shipshape. Hell, everybody knows that.”
“How do you know that?” Bright asked, trying to hide his exasperation.
“Sir, you lower boats into the water, or you rig stuff on this ship, and that’s my job. We call it seamanship. I mean, say you had some piece of gear that weighs as much as a man, okay? You want it swinging around loose like a friggin’ chandelier on a long chain? Christ, it’d eventually hit the radar, tear it right off the mast. We had a storm that night, too. Nah, the way they did it in the old days was just like a signal hoist—line on top of the hoist and a line on the bottom, tie it off nice and tight so it don’t go noplace. Hey, somebody in the deck division leaves stuff flapping around like that, I tear him a new asshole. Gear is expensive. We don’t go around breaking it for kicks, sir. What do you think, Portagee?”
“He’s right. That was a pretty good blow we had that night—didn’t the captain tell you?—the only reason we still had the punks aboard was that we waved off the helo pickup ’cause of the weather. We didn’t have any work parties out on deck that night, did we?”
“No chance,” Riley said. “We buttoned up tight that night. What I mean, sir, is we can go out and work even in a damned hurricane if we have to, but unless you gotta, you don’t go screwin’ around on the weather decks during a gale. It’s dangerous. You lose people that way.”
“How bad was it that night?” Murray asked.
“Some of the new kids spent the night with their heads in the thunderjugs. The cook decided to serve chops that night, too.” Oreza laughed. “That’s how we learned, ain’t it, Bob?”
“Only way,” Riley agreed.
“So there wasn’t a court-martial that night either?”
“Huh?” Riley appeared genuinely puzzled for a moment, then his face brightened. “Oh, you mean we gave ‘em a fair trial, then hung ’em, like in the old beer commercial?”
“Just one of them,” Murray said helpfully.
“Why not both? They’re both fuckin’ murderers, ain’t they? Hey, sir, I was aboard that yacht, all right? I seen what they did—have you? It’s a real mess. You see something like that all the time, maybe. I never have, and—well, I don’t mind tellin’ you, sir, it shook me up some. You want ‘em hung, yeah, I’ll do it and they won’t bitch about it the next day, either. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t ’a snapped the one over the rail—lost my cool, and I shouldn’t have—okay, I’m sorry about that. But those two little fucks took out a whole family, probably did some rapin‘, too. I got a family, too, y’know? I got daughters. So does Portagee. You want us to shed tears over those two fuckers, you come to the wrong place, sir. You sit ’em in the electric chair and I’ll throw the switch for you.”
“So you didn’t hang him?” Murray asked.
“Sir, I wish I‘d’a thought of it,” Riley announced. It was, after all, Oreza who’d thought of it.
Murray looked at Bright, whose face was slightly pink by this time. It had gone even more smoothly than he’d expected. Well, he’d been told that the captain was a clever sort. You didn’t give command of a ship to a jerk—at least you weren’t supposed to.
“Okay, gentlemen, I guess that answers all the questions we have for the moment. Thank you for your cooperation.” A moment later, Wegener was leading them away.
The three men stopped at the gangway for a moment. Murray motioned for Bright to head for the car, then turned to the captain.
“You actually operate helicopters off that deck up there?”
“All the time. I just wish we had one of our own.”
“Could I see it before I leave? I’ve never been aboard a cutter before.”
“Follow me.” In less than a minute, Murray was standing in the center of the deck, directly on the crossed yellow lines painted on the black no-skid deck coating. Wegener was explaining how the lights at the control station worked, but Murray was looking at the mast, drawing an imaginary line from the yardarm to the deck. Yeah, he decided, you could do it easy enough.
“Captain, for your sake I hope you never do anything this crazy again.”
Wegener turned in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“We both know what I mean.”
“You believe what those two—”
“Yes, I do. A jury wouldn’t—at least I don’t think one would, though you can never really tell what a jury will believe. But you did it. I know—you can’t say anything....”
“What makes you think—”
“Captain, I’ve been in the Bureau for twenty-six years. I’ve heard lots of crazy stories, some real, some made up. You gradually get a feel for what’s real and what isn’t. The way it looks to me, you could run a piece of rope from that pulley up there, down to here pretty easy, and if you’re taking the seas right, having a man swing wouldn’t matter much. It sure wouldn’t hurt the radar antenna that Riley was so worried about. Like I said, don’t do it again. This one’s a freebie because we can prosecute the case without the evidence you got for us. Don’t push it. Well, I’m sure you won’t. You found out that there was more to this one than you thought, didn’t you?”
“I was surprised that the victim was—”
“Right. You opened a great big can of worms without getting your hands too dirty. You were lucky. Don’t push it,” Murray said again.
“Thank you, sir.”
One minute after that, Murray was back in the car. Agent Bright was still unhappy.
“Once upon a time, when I was a brand-new agent fresh out of the Academy, I was assigned to Mississippi,” Murray said. “Three civil-rights workers disappeared, and I was a very junior member of the team that cleared the case. I didn’t do much of anything other than hold Inspector Fitzgerald’s coat. Ever hear about Big Joe?”
“My dad worked with him,” Bright answered.
“Then you know that Joe was a character, a real old-time cop. Anyway, the word got to us that the local Klukkers were mouthing off about how they were gonna kill a few agents—you know the stories, how they were harassing some families and stuff like that. Joe got a little pissed. Anyway, I drove him out to see—forget the mutt’s name, but he was the Grand Kleagle of the local Klavern and he was the one with the biggest mouth. He was sitting under a shady tree in his front lawn when we pulled up. He had a shotgun next to the chair, and he was half in the bag from booze already. Joe walks up to him. The mutt starts to pick up the shotgun, but Joe just stared him down. Fitzgerald could do that; he put three guys in the ground and you could see in his face that he’d done it. I got a little worried, had my hand on my revolver, but Joe just stared him down and told him if there was any more talk about offing an agent, or any more shitty phone calls to wives and kids, Big Joe was going to come back an
d kill him, right there in his front yard. Didn’t shout or anything, just said it like he was ordering breakfast. The Kleagle believed him. So did I. Anyway, all that loose talk ended.
“What Joe did was illegal as hell,” Murray went on. “Sometimes the rules get bent. I’ve done it. So have you.”
“I’ve never—”
“Don’t get your tits in a flutter, Mark. I said ‘bent,’ not broken. The rules do not anticipate all situations. That’s why we expect agents to exercise judgment. That’s how society works. In this case, those Coasties broke loose some valuable information, and the only way we can use it is if we ignore how they got it. No real harm was done, because the subjects will be handled as murderers, and all the evidence we need is physical. Either they fry or they cop to the murders and cooperate by again giving us all the information that the good Captain Wegener scared out of ’em. Anyway, that’s what they decided in D.C. It’s too embarrassing to everyone to make an issue of what we discussed aboard the cutter. Do you really think a local jury would—”
“No,” Bright admitted at once. “It wouldn’t take much of a lawyer to blow it apart, and even if he didn’t—”
“Exactly. We’d just be spinning our wheels. We live in an imperfect world, but I don’t think that Wegener will ever make that mistake again.”
“Okay.” Bright didn’t like it, but that was beside the point.
“So what we do now is figure out exactly why this poor bastard and his family got themselves murdered by a sicario and his spear-carrier. You know, when I was chasing wise guys up in New York, nobody messed with families. You didn’t even kill a guy in front of his family except to make a special kind of point.”
“Not much in the way of rules for the druggies,” Bright pointed out.
“Yeah—and I used to think terrorists were bad.”
It was so much easier than his work with the Macheteros, Cortez thought. Here he was, sitting in the corner booth of a fine, expensive restaurant with a ten-page wine list in his hands—Cortez thought himself an authority on wines—instead of a rat-infested barrio shack eating beans and mouthing revolutionary slogans with people whose idea of Marxism was robbing banks and making heroic taped pronouncements that the local radio stations played between the rock songs and commercials. America had to be the only place in the world, he thought, where poor people drove their own cars to demonstrations and the longest lines they stood in were at the supermarket check-out.