grace dropped down on one knee when Dan yelled; she heard the shot, then realized she was probably silhouetted in the doorway. She scuttled sideways, tripping over all the junk piled around the entrance. She regained her balance as she heard a cop car coming down the side street.
There were thirty seconds of rising j noise from the cop car, and then it came around the corner and screeched to a halt when the driver apparently saw Grace through the doorway, its front end I slewing around so that its headlights pointed directly down the center of the gun factory’s floor. In the sudden blaze of white light, she saw Dan on the floor first.
His face—was that blood? And then she caught sight of the tall figure standing to one side, stripes, lots of stripes—a naval officer. Who the hell was that? Then the tall figure pointed something at Dan, and Grace, galvanized by his move, stood up and began firing the pistol as fast as she could. The big gun bucked and roared in her hands, the muzzle flash momentarily blinding her. There was an amazing amount of gun smoke, and she could hear heavy bullets ricocheting off the machinery. The silence when she had emptied it was almost painful to her ringing ears, and she realized her eyes were closed. When she opened them, the tall figure was gone. Then there were two cops scrambling into the building behind her, guns drawn, faces white.
“What the hell’s going down here, lady?” one yelled at her. They looked as if they didn’t know whom to point their weapons at.
She dropped the empty gun and headed into the building. “Snow, NIS!” she shouted over her shoulder.
“Get an ambulance.” The cop was yelling something back at her, but she ignored him and ran over to where Dan was lying in a crumpled heap. And then she saw all the blood: His face was covered in blood, and there was blood all over the floor. Head shot. Oh my dear God, a head shot. He was very still. She heard a noise farther down the building and caught a glimpse of a running figure all the way at the other end of the factory floor.
He was headed for the far corner. One of the cops saw him, too, and yelled for him to stop.
“That’s him,” Grace yelled. “That’s the shooter. Stop him. He’s getting out the back of the building! He’s killed Commander Collins!”
The cop yelled again and assumed a firing stance, but now there was nothing to shoot at. He lowered his weapon as Grace came running past him.
“Hey, lady, I need to see some ID,” the cop shouted.
His partner was back in the car, which was sitting in the opened doorway, calling for an ambulance. Grace never stopped; she ran right to the pickup truck. She clawed open the door, jumped in it, her mind galvanized by a white fury, started the truck in a roar, and jammed it down into gear. The big F-250 bolted out of the loading dock, laying rubber and nearly colliding with another cop car that was pulling up.
Grace cranked the wheel and turned back down the street that ran along the side of the Turret Lathe Building, lights out, accelerating past a bevy of cop cars, scattering cops in every direction and knocking the taillights off one car. She reached blindly for the bag with the gun in it, never taking her eyes off the street, finding the butt with her right hand
“v/vn,:/ v.
and extracting it from the bag. She had the truck halfway down the building when she saw him climbing out of a window over a door at the far corner, struggling for a moment, then dropping to the pavement in a heap, getting up, starting to run along the street, his jacket with those four stripes flying. As she veered over to his side of the street, still accelerating, she grappled with the automatic, trying to point it.
Bastard had killed Dan. She took her left hand off the wheel for an instant to turn on the lights and nearly lost control of the truck.
The fleeing man kept running, but then suddenly he skidded to a stop at the side of the road as if he had finally noticed the oncoming pickup truck. He raised his gun hand as Grace floored it, the engine winding flat out, the vision of Dan’s bloody, lifeless face superimposed on the windshield as she focused on the motionless figure at the side of the street, the figure in the full uniform of a captain, USN. Then she recognized him: Summerfield!
She took her foot off the accelerator, hunting for the brake pedal, her brain not wanting to register the fact that Summerfield had stepped off the sidewalk and was calmly walking out into the path of the truck, that he had lowered his arm and was looking right at her when the truck hit him and blasted his body seventy-five feet through the air, to crash through a lighted window in the first floor of the Forge Building. Grace slammed on the brakes, skidding the truck for over a hundred feet until it finally spun around in the street in a shriek of tires and nearly turned over before rocking back on to all four tires and stalling out.
She collapsed over the steering wheel, screaming Dan’s name and pounding on the wheel rim with the gun until she became aware that there were cops standing all around her. A sergeant started to approach the door on the driver’s side, when another cop called out.
“Careful, Danny. Jesus Christ, don’t piss her off. She knocked that fucker clear into that building!”
Grace realized she was still holding on to the gun with her right hand.
She took a deep breath, lowered the window, reversed the grip, and handed the gun to the sergeant, then sat back against the seat. Everyone seemed to relax when she handed the gun out, and then the sergeant was gingerly opening the door. She got out, weak-kneed, and he took her by the arm and walked her over to one of the cop cars. She reached for her identification, then realized she didn’t have a purse.
“I’m Grace Ellen Snow,” she said. “Formerly of the NIS. My—Commander Collins—is he … is he—?”
“The guy in the gun factory? The commander is gonna be okay, miss,” the sergeant said. “Guy winged him in the ear, and we found a stun gun on the floor.”
“In the ear? There was all that blood—”
“Yeah, well, you know ears. They’re taking him to Bethesda. Now look, Miss. Snow, I gotta read you your rights and all, okay? I mean, that bit with the truck, that guy stepping out in front of you that way, that may have been righteous and everything, but right now—”
“I understand. When can I see Commander Collins?
I—”
“Well, first, I think we ought to go back to the NIS offices. I mean, this is gonna be complicated. Did you say formerly of the NIS?”
Grace slumped against the side of the cop car. There were a great number of cars and people milling around in the street now. She could tell that some of them were still unsure of who the good guys were. Then she saw a familiar face in the crowd.
“That’s Capt. Moses Vann, of the P.C. police,” she said, pointing.
“Homicide. Please, let him through. He can help clarify this.”
“Okay, but we gotta take you back to the NIS offices.”
They let Vann through and he joined Grace in the cop car after identifying himself to the Navy Yard police.
The sergeant drove Grace around the block to the entrance of the Forge Building, where there was a small crowd of NIS staffers and security people at the entrance.
Vann didn’t say anything during the short trip, but he did surreptitiously take her hand. She didn’t realize how badly she was trembling. When they rounded the corner, she was surprised to see an ambulance out in front. Did they have Dan in there? They pulled nose-to-nose with the ambulance. Vann got out and gave her a hand out of the car. As she was escorted up the front steps, she saw Robby Booker and the elderly security guard on the steps. Then two other familiar figures appeared: Rear Admiral Keeler and Captain Rennselaer. Both looked as if they were in shock. The admiral had a medical orderly at his elbow, and he appeared to have some cuts on his face. Keeler paused for a moment when he caught sight of Grace, but then he walked by, stone-faced, toward a waiting staff car with Rennselaer, whose face was white with shock. They were followed out the door by Doug Englehardt, who stopped in his tracks when he saw Grace and the policemen.
“Grace, what are you doing
here? Good God, are you all right? What the hell’s—”
“I’m all right, Doug. Why is there an ambulance here?”
“You don’t know? Of course not, how could you. But … well, there’s been some kind of shoot-out down the block, and then, and then—” He took a deep breath. “We were all—Ames, the admiral, the EA, myself —we were all meeting in Admiral Keeler’s office, about the Hardin case, when, Jesus, I don’t know how to say this.”
“What, for God’s sakes?” She could see the cops were getting impatient.
“Well, we’d been looking out the windows at all the cop cars and had just sat back down again. Roscoe Ames and I heard what sounded like a vehicle coming up the street at high speed. The admiral was impatient to get on with the meeting, so neither of us got up to look, and then this body came flying through the windows.
I mean just that: flying through the god damned window like a rag doll.
Right through the window, the Venetian blinds, glass every goddamn where—the admiral even got cut. And the body—the guy was Navy. A four-striper.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well.”
“Well? Well! Jesus Christ, Grace. Look, they’ve made a tentative identification. Rennselaer said he recognized the guy, although it was kinda, uh, difficult.” Englehardt swallowed. “But like I said; he was a naval officer.
A captain—”
“Summerfield,” she finished for him. “Ronald Sum merfield. I have to go inside now, Doug.” Leaving En glehardt standing there with his mouth open, Grace went up the steps and into the building.
four days later, at just after five in the afternoon, Dan and Grace were sitting in the Potomac Boat Club lawn chairs, waiting for Moses Vann.
They were watching several rowers milling about the boat landing, all of them anxious to get out on the river for the last hour of daylight. Dan was wearing his rowing togs, and Grace was wearing slacks and an old Georgetown sweatshirt.
Dan’s left ear and cheek were still bandaged. They sat in comfortable silence, worn out after days of testifying before the Navy’s Article 32 hearing in the Pentagon and giving seemingly endless statements to various kinds of police.
Dan reflected on the past three days. The Chief of Naval Operation’s office had moved swiftly to convene the pre-court-martial investigation and hearings after the events of Monday night in the Navy Yard. Dan’s and Grace’s testimony had been pivotal to untangling the conspiracy surrounding the two Hardin murders, especially with Summerfield dead and Ward in the city mental hospital. It had become clear after three days of Article 32 hearings before a military judge that Summerfield, Randall, and Rennselaer had been the key players in the conspiracy to protect Rear Admiral Keeler, although, absent any testimony to the contrary from the three captains, Keeler could not be tied directly to either of the Hardin murders. Randall, loyal EA to the last, had steadfastly maintained that he had kept everything from the vice chief, concocting the diversion of the original investigation from NIS to Opnav under the pretext of public-relations concerns strictly on his own volition.
Dan was still worried about Grace’s emotional battery levels. She had gone through three days of hearings stoically, but the nights had been stormy, with sieges of crying and one more nightmarish episode of being almost hysterically ill in the middle of the night on Wednesday. Her doctor had told Dan that she was suffering from an assault of delayed stress anxiety but that with his support and presence, she should come out of it in a few weeks. The coroner’s finding that Summer field had, in effect, committed suicide in front of the truck had helped. But they both knew that it would take some time to get themselves back on an even keel.
Dan finally spotted the policeman coming through the boat shed and waved him over, indicating that he should bring one of the folding chairs.
Vann walked down the lawn, shucking his suit coat as he came; it was almost hot in the gleaming late-afternoon sunlight along the river. He looked incongruous in his white shirt and tie among all the seminaked men toting shells and sculls down to the pontoon landing. The immense pistol hanging out of its shoulder rig raised some eyebrows as he came down the hill, but no one was prompted to say anything.
“So what happened to spring? This feels like summer down here,” he said as he plopped down in the chair, draping his suit coat over his knees and putting his briefcase on the ground.
“You’re just out of uniform,” Dan replied. “Compared with July and August, this is heaven. You ought to give it a try sometime.”
Vann looked around at the rowers, taking in the glossy, expensive-looking boats and then casting a dubious eye at the ramshackle club building.
“I’m too old for this vigorous exercise stuff,” Vann muttered, quickly looking somewhere else when a trim and fit-looking man of at least seventy came out of the boathouse, a shiny fiberglass single balanced easily on his head. Grace and Dan grinned.
“So what did you think of the Navy’s Article Thirty two hearing process?” Dan asked.
Vann shook his head in wonderment. “I’ve never had a double homicide case come to closure as fast as this one,” he said. “When the Navy wants to put something to bed in a hurry, they can flat ass move.” He fished in his briefcase and then handed Dan a large manila envelope.
“Here’s your copy of my disposition report. That JAG captain said the Navy paperwork would take a couple of weeks.”
“So it will stay in military jurisdiction, then?” Dan asked.
“Yup. And there ain’t no volunteers downtown who want it any other way.
Seems like your CNO can organize a court-martial hearing at the speed of heat, he gets him some guilty bastards in his sights.”
“Randall and Rennselaer both pleading guilty?”
Grace asked.
“And Keeler,” Vann said.
“But not to murder?”
“No. See, the only guys directly tied to the murders were Malachi Ward and your Captain Summerfield.
The captain … well, he’s in the ground. And as for Ward, the docs up at St. Elizabeth’s figure he isn’t gonna come back among the mentally competent anytime soon, if ever. He’s been screaming since that security watch found him in that museum ship Wednesday morning, and now they got him in diapers and twenty four-hour restraint, with Thorazine cocktails twice a day.”
“How did they find Ward?”
“Security guard found his windbreaker on the main deck, with what looked like bloodstains. He eventually organized a search of the ship, and they found him the next morning.”
“I wish they’d never found him,” Dan said, his face suddenly grim.
“There was justice in where he ended up … in that ship.”
Vann snorted. “Justice? Since when does justice enter into it? I’m a cop, remember? You don’t talk about justice to a cop. But Ward’s been useful, in his own twisted way.”
“How so?” Grace asked.
“Neither of those EAs nor that Admiral Keeler fella knew what kind of shape Ward was really in after he was found in that boiler.”
“And the government didn’t exactly clarify it for them, did it?” Dan said.
“That JAG captain, he’s a pretty fair prosecutor.
What do you guys call him, trial counsel? Well, anyway, as long as Ward is alive, they all figured they’d be better off copping federal conspiracy pleas to a military judge than going to a civilian court and having that Ward guy testify under some grant of immunity. So the two EAs are both going down on conspiracy-to-murder charges and double OJ one. They’ll go in for fifteen to life. The admiral has himself a civilian attorney, so we’ll have to see what he does.” He consulted his folder for a moment.
“And the Navy threw in a charge I really love against the admiral.” He snorted. “Conduct unbecoming an officer. That’s rich.”
Dan shook his head. “I’ll bet the vice chief instigated that. It’s more serious than it sounds. Conduct unbecoming is grounds for a ruling of moral turpitude.
And moral
turpitude is the one charge under Title Ten U.S. Code for which the admiral can be administratively stripped of his commission—which is to say, his pension, medical benefits, and all future veterans’ benefits.”
“I didn’t know that,” Vann said. “I thought it was just ceremonial, sort of walking the plank or something.
What’s gonna happen to NIS?”
“NIS? NIS is a collection of working stiffs trying to get a job done.
Their boss and his EA went bad, not the troops. They’ll get a new boss, and the Navy will probably change the organization’s name.”
“And Admiral Torrance walks free?” Grace asked.
“Not quite,” Dan said. “Three days of news coverage on this whole mess means he’ll never even go up for a confirmation hearing as the next CNO.
It was his EA obstructing justice, and, at least administratively, his own orders to move the investigation around between NIS and Opnav. And all the flags know that Keeler was one of his crown princes. So, basically, he’ll pay the price of being indistinguishable from his EA.”
“Do you think he was part of it?” Grace asked Vann.
“Who the hell knows,” Vann said with a sigh. “That’s the old Washington question, isn’t it? What did he know, and when did he know it? But a guy like that is pretty wily. Personally, I think he might have known more than he’s letting on, but when he ordered you to help me get back into the investigation, he went a long way toward neutralizing any attack we could make on his personal credibility. And from what both of you have said in your statements, it looks like the EAs were the real players.
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