Darkside

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Liz,” he croaked.

  “Don’t talk; just be still,” a woman’s voice was whispering in his ear, her soft, cool hands on his cheek. Amazingly, he detected a splinter in his other cheek, the cheek that was sticking to the pier. He felt the weight of Booth’s body move farther sideways. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “The EMTs are coming. Just hang on. Stay awake. Keep breathing.”

  Keep breathing. Right, he thought. He tried to say something, anything, but he just couldn’t get enough good air down into his lungs, where the pain was, terrible, suffocating pain now. Yet in a way, he wanted to laugh. Here was yet another woman telling him what to do. It figured. Even so, he thought he’d picked the right name. He tried it again, but nothing came out this time but a big red bubble. Then all the noise seemed to withdraw into a rush of darkening echoes. His ears filled with the sound of wind rushing through trees, a veritable roaring, and he decided, Okay, enough’s enough. Just go with it.

  Jim Hall and Branner sat in her Bronco in the parking lot outside the Navy and Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, listening to the echoes of the vice president’s voice as he wrapped up his commencement speech. The parking lots were filled with cars and security vehicles. In a few minutes would come the three cheers and the blizzard of white midshipmen’s caps going up again and again as the class of 2002 achieved its freedom.

  “Eight minutes,” Branner noted, looking at his watch. “I guess if you have a heart condition, you tend to cut to the chase, even when making a speech.”

  “As if they’re listening,” he said. “See all these new cars out here? They belong to the mids. Notice anything about them?”

  “They’re all better wheels than I drive,” she said.

  “No. They’re all pointed nose out. You’re gonna see a Le Mans start in the away direction here in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Why so fast?” she asked. “What are they afraid of?”

  “That the Dark Side might change its mind.”

  There was a sustained round of applause within the stadium. Then a new voice began speaking. It was hard to make out precisely what he was saying because of the way the speakers reverberated around the stadium and the parking lots.

  “I can’t believe you really want to leave all this behind,” Jim said. “Trade quaint Olde Annapolis for the frigging Washington Navy Yard.”

  “Well, it’s just about as old as this burg,” she said. “And looks it, too.”

  The band began playing some martial music, and then there was the rumble of everyone standing up for the oath of office. They listened through the open windows, waiting for the big cheers. They came a minute later. They could just see some of the hats flying through one of the walk-through arches on the side of the stadium.

  “All done,” Jim said. “Now it’s Enswine Julie Markham. Lower than whale shit once more. One moment, a firstie. Now an officer plebe. Funny how that works.”

  “At least it isn’t Second Lieutenant Booth,” she said.

  “Amen to that,” he said. “And to think he swam all that way, up the river and into that creek. He knew right where to go, too.”

  “You’d think the Academy would have seen this coming,” she said, watching the gates. “I finally got his admissions record yesterday, got his personal history.”

  She told Jim about Booth’s background. How he’d been born and raised in a Baltimore housing project, apparently never knowing his father. His mother had come to Baltimore from West Virginia, trying to catch up with the man who got her pregnant. She ended up staying because there was little to go back to in the coal hills. She’d gone from welfare to work and back again, having two more children along the way, before getting shot and killed in a convenience store holdup when Dyle was twelve. He’d gone into the system, then was placed in a foster home, where the couple, a retired teacher and his wife, recognized Dyle’s latent intelligence and got him into the Catholic school system, eighth grade right through high school. Some teacher comments alluded to a violent streak, based in part on his size, but they were collectively of the opinion that this problem had been addressed by some of the Dominican brothers in his high school. He’d demonstrated a pattern in high school of excelling in math and science, but sometimes getting C ’s in his nontechnical classes. But the combination of mathematical ability and athletic ability had proved irresistible to the Academy.

  “All in all, he turned into one scary dude,” she concluded.

  “He was when he was doing that vampire thing, I’ll tell you that much. I can still see that face.”

  “Well, the professor did exactly the right thing then, didn’t he?”

  He shook his head and then took her hand, surreptitiously now, because people had begun to stream out of the stadium. “I’m going to miss you, Special Agent,” he said.

  “I was serious about coming to work for NCIS. You’ve impressed Harry Chang, and that’s about all it would take.”

  “That would mean having a real job. A career. You know that’s a big step for me, Special Agent.”

  “You know these people are going to fire your ass. What else do you have to do?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I could sit on my boat a lot, harass my parrot. Cherry-pick the bars, bring young lovelies back to my yacht, ply them with charm and some really good booze, have my way with them all night. You know, the usual. I mean, hell, somebody’s got to do it.”

  “So many girls, so little time, huh?”

  “Something like that. I may even take the boat out one day. Get up one of those all-girl crews, sail topless out of the harbor, or group moon the AYC. And all because you won’t tell me your first name.”

  She clucked sympathetically. “But maybe if you came to Washington…I mean, there’s a marina right next to the old battleship gun factory at the Navy Yard. You get to hear gunfire most nights. You were a Marine-you must miss that. And Jupiter could curse pigeons all day long. Oh, and up there, they’re called women, not girls.”

  “Oh. Women. But how do those Washington women feel about unemployed, non-career-motivated wharf rats? Seems to me everyone in D.C. is either on the take or on the make. Not sure Jupiter and I’d fit in.”

  She looked over his shoulder. “Incoming,” she murmured.

  He turned around and saw Julie Markham, resplendent in her graduation whites and gleaming new one-stripe shoulder boards, pushing her father’s wheelchair toward the Bronco through the flood of fleeing graduates. Liz DeWinter followed behind them, barely visible in a white linen suit, white gloves, and huge floppy hat. Jim and Branner got out to meet them.

  “Congratulations, Ensign Markham,” Jim said. “If I were still in uniform, I’d collect that dollar.”

  “Our battalion master chief already got it,” Julie said with a little smile. It was traditional that the first enlisted person to salute a newly commissioned officer received a silver dollar. “But thank you both. For everything.”

  “Second that,” her father said. Jim thought he looked older and thinner, but losing a lung that way probably contributed. At least he was alive. When Liz put her hand on his shoulder, his face dropped ten years. Jim could relate to that.

  “And the records are all cleaned up, right?” Jim asked. “Books closed on the Dell incident?”

  Julie’s face grew serious as she nodded. “Admiral McDonald didn’t quite look at me when he handed over my commission, but at least he kept a smile on his face.”

  “You meet the new commandant?”

  “Nope. And probably never will. Supes, dants, plebes, report chits, BIOs, formations-that’s all in the past now. Thanks to you both. Again.”

  Branner shook her hand and then Ev’s, nodded politely at Liz DeWinter, who gave her a cool smile in return, and then got back into the Bronco.

  “I heard a story,” Julie said to Jim. “That the real reason the dant closed the books on all this was because of something you said to him during that meeting. Like you had something on him.”

  “Stories are a dime
a dozen after an incident like this one,” Jim said, glancing at the professor to see what he might know. Markham’s face was a polite mask. “Usually, the stories come from people who weren’t there but who want to pretend they were. I think they closed the books because it was becoming too politically painful to keep them open.”

  Julie gave him an appraising look for a moment. All of a sudden, Jim thought, she looked very grown up indeed. “I suppose no one will ever tell the whole truth about this, will they?” she said.

  “Probably not.”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at him expectantly.

  “Welcome to the fleet, Ensign,” he said. “Happy landings at Pensacola.”

  “I’ve told her that a good landing is one you can walk away from,” Ev offered. “But that a great landing is one where they can use the airplane again.”

  Julie smiled and then they left to join the escaping hordes. There was a flurry of sirens and red lights as the vice president’s motorcade eased its way through the crowd. Jim got back into the Bronco, where Branner was watching the stream of ebullient graduates, trailed by teary-eyed parents, girlfriends, and soon to be ex-girlfriends as the mids, now officers, headed out for those fabled seven seas.

  “Professor Markham looks like he was shot at and missed, shit at and hit,” she observed.

  “Actually, shot at and hit,” Jim said. “He’s lucky to be alive. Forty-five can put a truck down. I’m surprised he’s out of the hospital.”

  “Lady lawyer looked pretty spiffy,” Branner said. “What there is of her.”

  “Hmm,” he said, being very careful.

  Branner turned in the front seat to look directly at Jim. She was wearing one of her short A-line skirts, which made it a dramatic turn. “You really want to know my first name?” she asked.

  “Hell yes,” he said, thoughts of lady lawyers long gone.

  “I have a tattoo,” she said, her green eyes bright. “It takes some finding, but that’s where my name is.”

  “Finding.”

  “It’s privately placed, as the brokers say. But first, you’d have to come up to Washington.”

  “Washington?” His voice almost squeaked as she did something with her hair. Every part of her seemed to move at once. “For how long, Special Agent?”

  She shrugged. “Long enough to find it?”

  “But, like I said, I have so much to do here in Crabtown. There’s the boat. And Jupiter. Painting. Scraping. Bright-work. And, hell, just lotsa stuff. You know me-I’m the security officer. Very important, very busy.”

  She discovered a small snag in her stocking, just above her right knee. She licked two fingers and massaged the errant material. “Like I said, it’s going to take some exploring. But if you can still read by the time you find it, well, then you’ll know.” She ran both hands partway up her thigh to smooth out the rest of the nylon, then pushed her skirt back into place. She cocked her head expectantly. As if he had a chance in hell.

  He swallowed once and then grinned. “Oh, shucks, Branner, I might as well.” He paused. Then they both said it in unison, “Can’t dance.”

  Julie Markham stopped on the steps of the eighth wing to soak up a quiet moment of personal triumph. She had changed into civvies, and her car was packed for the trip south to Pensacola. She was finally done. Everything was out of her room. Liz had taken her father out to lunch at the Yacht Club, where Julie was supposed to join them shortly. She’d said her good-byes to Tommy, Melanie, and several of her company classmates as everyone got ready to leave Mother B. for the last time. The exodus of the class of 2002 was just about over, with the echoes of noisily promised correspondence already beginning to fade. There were even some parking spaces along the Yard’s streets. Bancroft Hall overlooked the whole messy process with stony indifference. A gaggle of mokes, as the cleaning crews were called, pushed canvas-sided trash dollies toward the ground-floor entrance, hoping for some commissioning week treasures.

  She could almost feel the marble facade of the eighth wing towering over her back. She’d been able to see the still-broken windows on the other side of the wing as she packed up. But all that was behind her now. Dyle. Brian Dell. Even Tommy. Poor Tommy.

  Directly in front of her was Lejeune Hall, with its strange ramped entrances, which always reminded her of a castle’s sally ports. Probably made the Marines feel at home. She took a deep breath. She had some unfinished business there.

  She took her last bag to the car, locked it, looked around to see if anyone was watching her, and then walked over to Lejeune. She went in one of the side entrances, found the right stairwell, and went down into the basement. The familiar smell of pool chemicals hit her. How long have I been swimming competitively? she wondered. Twelve years? Seemed like forever. She could still taste those McDonald’s breakfasts, shoved down her throat after predawn practices while someone’s bleary-eyed mom drove her and her teammates to school. She already felt a little out of shape after not swimming for an entire week.

  She walked along the narrow passageway that contained the pool piping and the racks of chemicals and chlorine bottles. The air was, as always, humid and warm, and the overhead lights were all encased in steam-tight globes. There was no one about, and her footsteps echoed quietly in the hot, wet air. The hum of machinery was almost comforting.

  She reached the storage room, with its broken door. Nothing got fixed quickly at the Academy. She stopped in front of the door and listened for sounds of anyone else down in the basement, but there was only the whine of the filtration pumps. She pulled the door toward her, scraping its bottom edge over the tile. She stopped and listened again. Just to make sure. The light inside the storage room was still on. Some of the tiles were warping up off the floor, and there were hundreds of muddy footprints. Straight ahead was the three-foot square hole in the wall, with its hingeless metal plate dangling forlornly from its bullet-smashed latch. A faint smell of wet cement seemed to be welling up from the black hole. To her right, along the wall, there was a bank of empty rusted steel lockers, which had obviously not been used for a very long time. She poked her head out the partially opened door to make sure no one was coming down the passageway, then went over to the locker nearest the back of the ruined door. She hesitated and then lifted the rusted latch. The door squeaked open reluctantly on partially frozen hinges.

  Inside, there was a mildewed laundry bag on the floor of the foot-square locker. She reached in, picked it up, and pushed the door shut. She took the bag over to the square hole in the back wall and pulled the strings to open it. Inside were all the elements of her Goth rig. The long black slit skirt. Those thigh-high fishnet stockings and black witch clogs. The studded dog collar. A bulging makeup kit. Fake fingernails. The fingerless gloves. The ridiculous wig. The very special video, its cassette broken and the tape pulled out in an unusable tangle.

  All of it. She shivered, but now it was over. She felt bad about Dell, because she really should have anticipated how far Dyle might take it. And she felt even worse about what had happened to her father. But she’d warned her father not to provoke Dyle. He hadn’t really come to do anything to her. Even that whole scene in the dorm room had been aimed at getting that security officer into the room, so Dyle could boast. The popinjay commandant showing up like that had been gravy. Fucking Dyle. He’d taken her right out to the limits again, but he wouldn’t have dropped her. Not Dyle. He’d known, ever since Dell’s death, that he’d never make it out of there, never make it to the Marines. The only person Dyle was going to hurt that night at her house was Dyle. But give him that: He’d been a true believer, right to the end. Death before dishonor and semper effing fi, right? He’d only come up the river to find her so she could watch him finally do it. That had been part of their deal. She had been required to watch, to witness that he was man enough.

  She felt another twinge of guilt about what had happened to her father. Her games with Dyle had been her sole, burning secret, the one part of her life that no one, esp
ecially not her father, had known about. That was the reason she’d lost it on the pier when Dyle shot her father: they had a deal, all right, but the second part was that no norms were to get seriously hurt. But Dyle had gone increasingly, frighteningly out of control: first Brian Dell, then that agent, and Krill-what had he done with hapless Krill?

  She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. No future in this kind of thinking. Their secret game was over. And everything that had happened, well, that had been Dyle driving the train, not her. Which made it okay. Her father was going to recover. And now he had Liz, so he was going to be all right. She had her diploma and her gold bars. As long as everything worked out, then what had gone on before was just-history, that’s all. She nodded to herself and took another deep breath. Then she closed the bag and reached through the hole to drop it. She heard it hit somewhere way down below in the shaft with a muddy thump. No one would ever be going back down there. She popped her head into the hole for a moment, but there was nothing to see. Just the strong smell of old wet cement. She backed out, thinking about all that was to come, flight school, her new life as a naval officer, fast exciting men, all the new horizons, and, if she was lucky, really lucky, the feel of a hot jet in her hands and between her knees. Everything lay in front of her. And only a few tingling memories of the walking, talking chaos that had been Dyle Booth fading behind her. Every time with Dyle had been the ultimate highwire act, especially the last time. It was positively amazing how sheer terror could make you feel alive as never before or after. She hoped the jets would be that big a rush. Everyone said they were.

  She smiled one last sly smile. A roofie. As if.

  “Damn you, Dyle Booth, you crazy bastard,” she whispered, remembering still the way that sliver of wood had throbbed in time with Dyle’s final heartbeats. “Am I going to miss your zone or what.”