Girl Takes The Oath

by Jacques Antoine

  She awoke with a start, having kicked all the covers off the bed. “Crap, it’s late,” she said, and rolled onto her feet. But when she raised the blinds, no sunlight beamed in, and she let out a sigh of relief. “Not even oh-five-hundred yet.” She peeled off the clothes from the day before, slipped into a running suit, and headed out for her morning run.

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  Chapter Twenty Three

  A Death in the Yard

  Today she turned around at the World War Two Memorial, across the river and past Jonas Green. No bodies of heroes were interred here, but she fancied a few noble souls might still cling to the stone and mortar symbol of the nation’s gratitude. Those who erected the monument had already passed on, and the succeeding generations barely paid any mind to this stout reminder of martial services rendered.

  She tarried a moment, looked down the hill at the Rt. 450 bridge—a few old men had already installed themselves on the landward side, dangling chicken necks in the water to tempt the crabs to the surface—and let her gaze wander off to the left, where new foliage did not completely obscure the squadron of YP boats moored next to Santee Road. And, yes, there, on the far side of the yard, she spied the green dome of the cathedral, the sight of which had been the object of so much yearning by the Youngsters a mere nine months earlier. In another few months, a new crop of wannabe Youngsters would crane their necks to see it, too.

  The run down the hill and across the flat expanse of the bridge posed no challenges, though the slight rise before turning onto Bowyer Road made her legs burn briefly. She waved to the guards at the gate and glided the rest of the way home, her shoes barely touching the ground, or so it seemed.

  But all was not as quiet as she expected. Flashing lights, and official cars, and an ambulance clogged up the roads and paths around Bancroft Hall, and a crowd of midshipmen milled about, straining to see something, a few in uniform, but most in sweats, just returning from their morning PT. Standing on the periphery of the crowd, unable to see anything and not wishing to engage with anyone directly, she tried to glean what information she could from any conversations she could overhear: “Did you see him?” “Is it bad?” “Blood everywhere!” “Can you see who it is?” He’s a goner.” “No way anyone survives that.”

  A few moments later, the rear doors of the ambulance slammed shut and it eased away as the security guards tried to clear a path through the onlookers. The curiosity of the crowd, which had seemed restrained before, perhaps oppressed by the presence of the victim, whoever it was, now seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief at his departure. It was even safe now to utter his name out loud: “Casey Bauer.”

  Emily took a backwards step, uncertain of her balance, reaching behind for something to steady herself. Bauer was no friend, but his death was also no accident, she immediately concluded, given recent events. Whoever was stalking her had hit upon a sure-fire way to focus even more attention on her.

  “You bitch,” a shrill voice exclaimed. “You did this.” She turned to see Kathy Gunderson pointing an accusatory finger at her. “You had it in for him,” she said, and charged directly at Emily, her face barely inches away, spitting venom. “You killed him. She did it,” she yelled for the benefit of the crowd. Agents Everett and Horton watched from a few feet away.

  When Emily didn’t respond, stunned by the scene she’d stumbled upon, as much as anyone else there, Gunderson swung at her face. Although every instinct told her to block, or at least lean out of the way, she didn’t move, and a heavy hand struck her cheek. It stung, of course, and the ringing in her ear made it difficult to think clearly. But one thought held steady: “Don’t strike back. Don’t even block. Let the girl work it out, no matter how much it hurts.”

  Of course, Emily’s seeming impassivity only enraged Gunderson the more. It must have seemed to her that nothing she could do would touch this infuriating girl. She shrieked out “You bitch” again and began to strike her chest and shoulders over and over again. Emily just took it, until she swung a fist at her face, and then she slapped it away. But before anything else could happen, Trowbridge stepped between them and pulled Gunderson away, whispering some wiser counsel into her ears than Emily had to offer.

  The crowd, which had formed a circle around the two girls, stared at Emily with aimless curiosity, soaking in the scene uncomprehendingly for a few more moments. Would they accuse her, too? No, they probably were too stunned themselves to formulate a judgment as coherent as that. But they might well form one later, each individually, once they’d had time to submit themselves to the rumor mill. It would be taken as a fact, somehow confirmed, though no one would know exactly how or by whom, that she had always hated Bauer and had it in for him.

  Slowly, the crowd dissipated, and Everett and Horton saw their chance. With a tiny gesture, Everett crooked her finger at Emily, and she responded, walking over to them. Did they pause to marvel at how easy it was to seal her cooperation?

  ~~~~~~~

  Back in Halligan Hall, another hour or more spent sitting quietly in the same non-interrogation room, with the same faux-wood veneer table and the same American flag posing as a Roman standard, she waited patiently for NCIS to get down to the business of accusing her of something. Raised voices in the hallway filtered through whatever soundproofing these walls were intended to provide.

  “I don’t care how damning it looks,” said a deep male voice that sounded like Deputy Commandant Crichton. “You’re gonna need better evidence than that.”

  “With all due respect, we don’t need your approval to move ahead, sir,” a woman’s voice said, probably Everett’s. “Let us do our job.”

  Another few minutes passed, mainly in silence, and then the door swung open crisply—was this an interrogation technique? Demonstrate controlled violence by opening the door quickly, but don’t let it bang against the wall—and Agent Horton entered, holding a folder and a yellow legal pad in a meaty hand. He took a seat opposite her and uttered some official information, like the time and date, into a small tape recorder.

  “Midshipman Second Class Michiko Tenno, can you account for your whereabouts this morning between oh-five-hundred and oh-five-thirty hours?”

  His tone was all business, but Emily couldn’t help suspecting that he was compensating for the slightest edge of fear. She’d gotten to him the other day, cowed him, and now he needed to erect a defensive façade to face her. Would he even make eye contact? It would be difficult to interrogate someone effectively without being able to glare directly into her eyes.

  “PT, sir.”

  “Where did you do your PT, Midshipman?”

  “I ran along Decatur and out through the Bowyer Road gate, across the river to Jonas Green, and up to the monument, then back again. That’s been my regimen every morning for the past few weeks.”

  “Are you on good terms with Midshipman First Class Casey Bauer?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What is the basis of your animosity for Mr. Bauer?”

  “You’d do better to ask about his animosity towards me.”

  “So you have no animosity towards him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And his animosity towards you, what was the cause?”

  “I’m not really in a position to know. You might ask Midshipman Gunderson, or perhaps Midshipmen Caspar and Martens.”

  “Why did you attack Mr. Bauer?”

  “I did not attack him, sir.”

  “Not ever?”

  Emily paused for a moment. What exactly was he referring to? She couldn’t help thinking of Zaki’s insistence on one particular rule in the code of honor: a midshipman tells the truth, and makes the truth known. She hadn’t exactly lived up to the second half of that one, at least not in respect to the incident in Cumberland Court.

  “No, sir.”

  “What would you say if I told you I had a sworn statement describing an incident earlier this year in which you attacked and seriously injured Mr. Bauer?”

  “D
o you have it in that folder, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Not at this time. Now answer the question.”

  “I’d stick to my statement. I have never attacked Mr. Bauer.”

  “You have never injured him, then?”

  “That’s a very different question, sir.”

  “Answer it, Midshipman.”

  “On one occasion, in a hand-to-hand class, I may have injured his pride, sir.”

  “Were you and Mr. Bauer engaging in a hand-to-hand class in Cumberland Court last fall?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So you admit attacking him in that alley?”

  “No, sir.”

  Horton was growing increasingly frustrated with her answers, since the statement he had before him accused her unequivocally, and the witness was another woman. Of course, the situation didn’t fit the usual profile for such incidents, which mainly tended to take the form of sexual assault accusations. As for the other oddity in this case, he had ample evidence of her hand-to-hand skills, so perhaps it wasn’t completely implausible that she could have prevailed over a larger man. The fact that she hadn’t filed a complaint against Bauer strongly suggested that she had attacked him.

  “Are you denying that you had an altercation with Mr. Bauer that night?”

  “No, sir. But I did not attack him. He and two others attacked me. I merely defended myself.”

  “Who were the others?”

  “Caspar and Martens.”

  “Is your statement that you were assaulted by Midshipmen Bauer, Caspar and Martens, and that you fought them off, causing them serious bodily injury?”

  “I don’t know how serious their injuries were, but yes, that’s the gist of it.”

  “Are you aware that you are in violation of the Honor Code by failing to report this incident?”

  “Given the history of the Academy in handling such accusations, when women make them, I’m sure you can understand why I preferred not to file a report. Since I was not injured, I saw no need to report a non-event. Also, since the incident was witnessed by Midshipman Gunderson, can I assume that you are citing her for a similar Honor Code violation for not reporting the incident, as well as Caspar and Martens, both of whom also obviously failed to report it?”

  Horton stammered for a moment, apparently at a loss for words. Emily watched him and smiled, then continued, “On the other hand, if you mean to say that Gunderson has now reported the incident, and therefore is not in violation of the Honor Code—I assume the sworn statement you have is hers—then I have also just now reported the incident to you.”

  Emily was especially pleased with herself for having found a way to leave Trowbridge’s name out of her statement. Whatever his reasons for not coming forward already, she felt no need to let NCIS come between him and his conscience. There would be plenty of time for it to make itself felt, of this at least she was confident.

  Just then, the door swung open again, this time banging against the wall before Everett pushed it closed. Another interrogation technique? She sat on the edge of the table on Emily’s side, looming over her. Perhaps it would have been more effective to have Horton glower down at her from that position, since he was so much taller, but Emily suspected Everett didn’t trust him with that task.

  “So your story is that you fought off three men in a dark alley, injuring them, and you came off without a mark on you? Do you really expect us to buy that?”

  Emily shrugged.

  “Answer for the record,” Everett barked at her, gesturing to the tape recorder.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you really expect us to believe you’re that skilled?”

  “I think you already know I am,” Emily said, now uncertain of the direction the conversation seemed to be taking.

  Everett opened the folder in front of Horton and extracted a photograph showing her driving the knife into Jiao Long’s neck at Quantico. She laid it on the table in front of Emily and said, “Yes, I believe we do know just how dangerous you are.” Emily blanched to hear these words, and Everett nodded to Horton, who opened a wall cabinet to reveal a video screen. He handed a remote control to Everett, who pressed a button to start a video.

  The feed from the security camera along the wall facing Garden Road showed a dark, grainy scene, and the time stamp read oh-five-seventeen hours. For the first few seconds, nothing moved, and then a dark figure sprang to the top of the wall, apparently finding hand-holds in the pointing of the brickwork. Just as the figure disappeared over the other side of the wall, a subtle turn of the hips made the female form of the interloper evident.

  A few seconds later, according to the time stamp, another camera picked up the same figure running along Buchanan Road, and a turn of her head revealed shoulder length, black hair. The scene then shifted to a third camera, covering the northwest corner of Bancroft Hall, and showed the woman confronting Midshipman Bauer, dressed in sweats, probably heading out to one of the athletic fields along Santee Road.

  Emily leaned across the table for a closer view of the screen. Initially, Bauer appears to recognize the woman, takes a short step towards her, and then recoils helplessly as she produces a long blade of some sort from behind her back. Holding it dagger-style in her right hand, she slashes him in an upward stroke, diagonally across his belly and chest, reverses the blade to slash back across his throat, and then in a final, fluid motion, brings the blade down through his collarbone and into his chest cavity.

  The last images showed her climbing over the wall on Garden Road and disappearing from view a few seconds later. The timestamp on the final image showed oh-five-nineteen hours, meaning the entire incident, from beginning to end took less than two minutes. Bauer himself was dispatched in less than five seconds. Everett reset the video to the initial image in which the figure of the woman is clearly silhouetted running along the top of the wall.

  “I think we’ve pretty well established that you have the skills to commit this crime,” she said. “The video captures you just as clearly—someone who looks just like you, your hair, your clothes, your skills, and your motive. And you have no alibi.”

  “The guards at that Bowyer Road gate will have a record of me leaving and returning on the other end of campus,” Emily said, though as the words were leaving her mouth, she realized what would come next.

  “You could easily have turned left instead of right outside the gate and returned along King George Street. There’s plenty of time, from your exit at Bowyer at oh-four-fifty-five to your return at oh-five-forty-seven hours, to have killed Bauer.”

  “No. I didn’t kill him,” Emily said, her face now flushed. The case against her, circumstantial as it was, had fallen so neatly into place. Even she was alarmed.

  “Look, honey,” Everett said, now suddenly turned friendly, and adopting the less threatening posture of someone about to offer sage counsel. “Why don’t you make this easier on yourself?” She reached across the table and slid Horton’s legal pad in front of Emily. With a click and a little flourish, she produced a pen and laid it on the pad. “Write out your side of it. Tell us all about how Bauer attacked you, and how you couldn’t take his harassment anymore. The judge will understand. Just don’t drag things out, ’cause there’s no sympathy that way.”

  Emily took a deep breath and tried to gather her thoughts. The evidence wasn’t perfect. No blood spatter on her, and there’d have to be some blood, the way Bauer was slashed and stabbed. Her clothes were similar to what the woman on the wall wore, but they weren’t identical. Emily’s running suit had stripes on the legs and arms, and that woman’s didn’t. And the murder weapon, whatever it was—some long knife or a short sword, perhaps even a wakizashi—there’d been no mention of it. These quibbles wouldn’t be enough to persuade NCIS of her innocence, but they reminded her of it, and that’s all she really needed to avoid doing something really foolish, like signing any sort of statement.

  Besides, she did
have an alibi witness, three in fact. The weight of the accusation had driven them from her mind. But those old men on the bridge, the crabbers, they might remember her. They might not remember the time they saw her, but she didn’t need them to. The gate log would settle that, and if she’d run past them on the bridge a few minutes after oh-five-hundred, there’s no way she could have made it all the way back down King George Street in time to kill Bauer.

  The expression on Everett’s face when she told her about the crabbers almost paid for all the indignities of the morning. Almost, but not quite. After all, as much of a fool and a bully as Bauer was, he didn’t deserve to die for it. And even if Gunderson wasn’t exactly a sympathetic soul, she probably didn’t deserve this much emotional turmoil. Most of all, her own friends were undoubtedly being put through the proverbial ringer, and she wished they could be spared that.

  “Fine,” Everett snarled. “We’ll look into it. In the meantime, you are confined to the Yard until further notice.” She stormed out of the room with those words, leaving Horton to deal with Emily.

  ~~~~~~~

  “I don’t see how we have any choice”—these words set Stacie off. Funderburk was discussing the latest events with a couple of the Firsties at one end of the tables reserved for the Twenty Eighth in King Hall at dinner. The meal hadn’t even been served when she lit into him.

  “No choice, sir? With all due respect, what happened to loyalty and unit cohesion? When we needed her talents to win Iron Company last year, we heard all about that. Now that she’s in trouble, when she might actually need us, all I hear is ‘we have no choice’ but to keep our distance.”

  “I’m not sure I like your tone, Carnot. It doesn’t sound like ‘all due respect’ to me.” Stacie sat back down at these words, and stared at a spot on the table in front of her. “But if you hadn’t noticed,” he continued, “I’m not proposing anything that Tenno hasn’t already put into effect on her side.”

  ‘On her side, sir?” Stacie said, wondering how provoked she should feel by the way Funderburk seemed ready to cut her friend loose. What about CJ? Why didn’t she say anything? Stacie glared at her, as if she expected the expression on her face to say all she meant to convey.