Darkside (19 page)

“You mean whether this is one dude or maybe a crew?”

“Exactly. Then up the ante a little. Wire the detectors as hunting cues, so when they get a hit, I can be waiting somewhere, like between him and the appropriate exit hole.”

“And then?”

“Whack him upside the head with a baseball bat, strip him, tie him up naked to a tree on the Johnnie campus, and then spray-paint his face for him.”

“Tut-tut,” Bagger said. “And you a federal officer. That would be serious brutality. The tree part anyway.”

“Actually, you're the federal officer. I'm just a Navy civilian employee.”

“With a sock Glock.”

“Well, that's mostly habit.”

“And a carry permit, I hope. Damn. This Guinness stuff grows on you. I'm gonna do one more.”

“Then don't drive for a while,” Jim warned. “Only thing the Irish are serious about is their alcohol.”

The pretty Goth girl was fixing her other shoelace. This time, most of the men in the bar were ready for the show, and she did not disappoint them. She gave Jim a fairly direct look, almost as if she recognized him, and then huddled back down with her two acolytes. The bartender brought Bagger his refill. Jim realized he would either have to leave or join Bagger in some serious drinking. He decided he wasn't in the mood, and from the looks of it, he wasn't in Bagger's league as a booze hound, either. Plus, that Goth girl might now know he was with the Academy and be planning some bullshit scene.

“I'm going to secure,” he said. “I think the bartender told those Goth girls that we're with the Academy. Don't want a scene in a public bar. Nice legs, though.”

“How nice?”

“Really nice, you get all the fetish rags and greasepaint off.”

A slow grin spread over Bagger's face. He looked five years younger with the sudden gleam in his eye. He turned around very deliberately to stare at the three girls. The pretty one stared right back, then flicked her tongue in and out of
her red-and-black mouth like a snake. Bagger flashed her a smile and turned back around. Jim saw her look back in their direction once, then get up and slink along the bar toward the bathrooms in the back. Standing, she looked ridiculous in the costume.

“Hey, look,” Jim warned. “Don't let those freaks lead you anywhere—that's how that vampire mugging shit's been going down.”

“Oh, hell,” Bagger said with an elaborate shrug.

Jim repeated his warning and then slid out of the booth. “I'll let you know when I have the motion detectors set up. Maybe you could join me, help me control my bad temper. And watch that Guinness.”

“Absolutely,” Bagger said. “But make sure it's a metal bat. Lots easier to clean.”

Jim laughed and left the bar. He hoped Bagger was mostly posturing about making a run on the Goths. There had been three girls, and usually two marks who followed them out into the dark alleys. Bagger could probably handle it if it was a setup, as long as he quit the Guinness at three. He stopped a block away from the bar. Should he go back? Make sure? Across the street, a woman opened her front door to retrieve a cat and gave him a wary look. He smiled and resumed walking down Maryland Avenue toward the Academy's front gate.

Hell with it, he thought. Bagger's a big agent now. Jim was going to concentrate on catching his rocket man.

 

Ev was reading Andrew Gordon's amazing history of the naval battle of Jutland when the phone rang. He glanced at his watch—it was almost midnight. He picked up. It was Julie.

“Hey,” he said. “You're up late.”

“I'm on my cellular. The passageway phones are secured.”

He thought he could hear the sound of wind blowing into the microphone of the cell phone. “You in your room?”

“Not exactly,” she said.

“Tell me you're not up on the damned roof.”

“Well…”

He sat straight up in his chair, the book spilling onto the floor. “What the hell, Julie? Are you nuts?”

“Chill, Dad. Dudes come up here all the time. It's kind of a firstie rate. There are even chairs—you know, those lawn chairs without legs? It's safe.”

“Is that a fact? Recommended by the Brian Dell family?”

“I'm not going to fall, Dad. And no one can see me. I'm way back from the edge, on the bay side. It's just a cool place to hang out.”

“Is there anyone with you?”

“No,” she said. “We had an interview today. With those NCIS people. I think Lawyer Liz is pissed at me.”

“Why would she be pissed at
you
? You're the client.”

“She doesn't believe me about Dell. I don't know why. And she was really hostile to those people. Then they started talking like they were coming after me. Dad, I didn't do anything!”

The wind blew across the cell phone again, making a ruffling noise. Liz wanted him to probe Julie's relationships at the Academy. Here was a way in. “Have you told anyone else what's going on?” he asked.

“No,” she said miserably.

“How 'bout Tommy Hays? Or is that permanently off?”

“Tommy's, well…”

“He's what?”

“He's mad at me, too. Everything's ending here, and he's resisting reality.”

“How so?”

“Basically, he's going surface line, which means he goes to Newport, Rhode Island. I'm going aviation, which means Pensacola, Florida. Long way apart.”

“He want to get married or something?”

“He wanted some kind of long-term commitment. I won't have time for that, what with flight school and all that.”

“College romance confronting graduation day.”

“I guess. Tommy's a great guy. Swim team kept us together. But now…”

Ev thought of what Liz had said about the swim team. “So the swim team thing is done? No more eight hours of practice every day?”

The wind blew against the cell phone. When she answered, there was a touch of reserve in her voice. “I still swim every day, but it's for exercise. The coaches are mostly working with next year's team. I do some coaching in the freestyle.”

“Well, at least you don't have to get up at zero dark-thirty anymore.”

He heard Julie sigh. “She asked you to ask me that, didn't she?” Julie said.
“Didn't she?”

Ev thought about playing dumb, then decided against it. After all they had been through in the two years since Joanne had died, Julie could read him like a book. “Yes, she did. She does think you're holding back, Julie. That you do know something about this Dell case. She can't protect you if you hold back on her.”

“Then to hell with her,” Julie snapped. “I don't need her. I haven't done anything wrong. I
want
to clear the air with those people. I'm not going to have some damned plebe's problems screwing up everything I've worked for these past four years. No damned way!”

“Now, Julie, listen—” he began, but then stopped. He thought he heard the sound of a car going by over the phone. She
was
on the damned roof.

“Look, Dad, I had nothing to do with what happened to Dell. I'm sorry he's dead. But I'm a big girl now, and if those NCIS people want to talk to me again, I'll waive my rights and tell them whatever they want to know about me, because I had
nothing
to do with Dell.”

Ev tried to think of something. “So you really want me to pull Liz off the case?”

“Yes. I don't need
Liz,
” she said. “I think maybe you need
Liz
more than I do.”

Ev tried to suppress the spike of anger he felt, but failed. At least now he knew what some of Julie's antagonism was all about, no matter what she'd said to Liz on that tape. “Tell you what,” he said as evenly as he could. “I'll tell Liz to stand down. I'll tell her what you're going to do, against her advice, of course. But you didn't hire her. I did. So you can't fire her. And I won't fire her. Which is not to say she won't fire you as a client.”

Julie didn't say anything. Ev gave her a full minute. He heard another car go by over the cell phone. “So call me if your grand plan doesn't work out,” he said finally. “In the meantime, I think you're out of your depth.” Then he hung up before she could reply.

 

Man, what a great night. Perfect night. Caught those two cops down in my tunnels, snooping around. They just happened to come past while I was on my way to see the girls. That security officer and some black guy. Waited for them to get far enough away, then retrieved one of my toys, a game victory rocket. I keep some shit like that down there, hidden in my stash. Set it on the deck plates, ignited the fuse, and watched her go, down that tunnel at the speed of fucking heat. And smoke? Man, was there smoke. Then I had to boogie because the fire trucks came to see what set off the smoke detectors. Taught those two who owns those tunnels, and it's not the Dark Side, not by a long shot.

Better than that, I scored another vampire strike out in town. Had to use Krill, and you know she's not much in the bait department, except for those amazing breasts. Hope that doesn't offend you. But I needed to do it again. Hell, even vampires have needs, right? Better yet, I got the same black guy who'd been fucking around in my tunnels earlier. He thought he was chasing skirt. He ended up chasing me. Big fucking mistake. You'll hear all about it—soon. Or maybe you won't.

Dark Side's gonna be really pissed about this one, and you know how they get when there's a really big fuckup,
right? They get real quiet, don't they? No foursquare ethics for them, are there? As if we won't find out. We always find out. They're so pathetic with all that morality and ethics shit. I guess it's just for the classroom, right? They're running scared about lots of shit just now, so close to hat day. Problem is, I'm really liking this shit, you know? They're so helpless, especially if they think those two clowns they sent down last night are going to catch up with my ass. Never happen, baby, not down there. And, actually, now there's only one, isn't there? But you haven't heard about it yet. Let's see if you even do.

Krill was perfect. Got the dude to trail her out of the bar, just like before. I'm slinking along in the shadows, across the street. Eased into Penfold Lane, where there're no streetlights, only those fake gas lights every fifty feet. Nice and dark. Then she slows down, backs up against a building wall, and then—this was so cool!—She lifts the top half of all that black bag fabric, and suddenly she's bare from the waist up. I mean, this is a great scene. The black dude, he is focused, man. Hell, gotta admit, I was focused. Krill is a regular Humpty-Dumpty, but she is something up top. She lets him look, and then, when he gets close, she squats down, starts undoing his belt, rubbing the side of her face up and down against the front of his pants, and he gets all groany and moany. While the vampire Dyle approaches from behind. Dude's so hot by now, I thought I was gonna have to say something, but then, just as she's tugging his zipper down with her teeth, he detects me. Turns his head, but his body doesn't follow, 'cause Krill's still working him up. I do my thing—the big hiss, the roar, the whole bit. Guy freezes, mouth open wide, dinner-plate eyes, total shock. I can smell the booze on him. Then Krill jerks his knees forward and he goes down backward like a ton of bricks, cracks his head on the concrete before I can do a thing. Starts to bleed, man. It looks bad, but then I remember head cuts bleed a lot. Anyway, we book. Get back to her pad for some afterglow. Krill's so excited, she—well, I guess I don't have to describe it in detail. Let me just say it was worth the trip, all around,
even with Krill. Especially if that guy was some kind of cop, which I think he was, going down in the tunnels with that security dude. I've never done a cop, but he was scared shitless, just like all the rest. Something about the brain seeing something it fears and freezing up the part that thinks. Something to remember when I get to do this shit for a living. Minus the cape and the makeup, of course. I really love this Jekyll-Hyde shit. Superstraight by day; Dyle the cop-banger by night. It's dangerous, it's exciting, and the girls get so hot, I can't believe the things they want to do afterward. You know. And nobody around me suspects a thing—not my classmates, not my company officer, not the faculty dweebs, nobody. Only you know the truth, and you have no reason to tell anyone, do you? Because then I'd stop telling you these things. Admit it, now, you'd miss that. I know you'd miss that. I know you better than you think.

Jim rolled over and pushed the light button on his Timex. It was 5:45. Saturday morning, if he remembered correctly. He groaned and rolled back over. He could hear the wind rising outside and the first patter of rain on the deck above the master's cabin. The boat was beginning to move around a little, and he could hear the rubber fenders compressing and then exhaling against the hull. He mentally reviewed the mooring lines, then decided to go back to sleep. At which point he heard the railing gate open and then slam back into place as someone very definitely stepped on deck from the pier. He remembered he hadn't reset the alarm. He tried to listen harder, but a blast of rain swept across the harbor and drowned out the sounds from above. He had a bedside light on and was reaching for his bathrobe when the door to his cabin swung open and Special Agent Branner was swiping her hand along the bulkhead, looking for the overhead light switch, which she found much too quickly.

“What did you do with Bagger Thompson?” she demanded.

“And a brilliant good morning to you, too, Special Agent. What are you doing aboard my boat and in my bedroom at this ungodly hour?”

He could focus his eyes now, and he saw that she was soaking wet, her normally perfect hair bedraggled and her
skirt plastered to her thighs. She saw him looking at her body and swore impatiently. “Get your ass out of that bed, Hall. I want to know what you and Thompson were up to last night.”

Jim, who slept naked, sighed audibly and obliged her. He walked over to the head without looking at her and went in and closed the door behind him. When he came out, she wasn't there and the lights were on in the main lounge. He put on his bathrobe, grabbed a dry towel, and went through to the lounge. She was sitting in his favorite chair, looking like an angry wet hen. He tossed her the towel and walked through to the galley to fire up the coffeemaker.

She'd made some superficial repairs when he came back out into the lounge and handed her a mug of coffee. She'd taken her soaked suit jacket off, and he manfully tried not to stare at her very wet blouse. Jupiter started bitching under his cage cover.

“Sorry,” she muttered into her coffee mug, not looking at him.

“Start at the beginning,” he said. “What's going on?”

“Bagger turned up at Anne Arundel General this morning at around zero two hundred,” she said. “Someone cracked his skull. He'd been drinking, apparently, which, I can tell you from personal experience, he should not do. He'd told me earlier that he was going out with you on some kind of ‘recon mission,' as he put it. Your turn.”

“Shit,” Jim said, and then gave her an abbreviated summary of the night before. He left out the part about the Goth girls.

“Guinness? You fed him Guinness?”

“He fed himself Guinness. Hey, he's an adult, okay? He'd had two and was talking about a third as I was leaving. I actually warned him about that stuff. How bad's he hurt?”

“Bad enough that he hasn't surfaced yet. Thanks to you.”

“Oh, screw that noise,” Jim snapped. “How would you react if I told you how many drinks
you
could have, huh?”

She started to say something, stopped, blew a long breath through pursed lips, and then relaxed. “Sorry,” she said again. “My partner gets whacked around and I wasn't there to protect him. That's on me, not you.”

He crossed the lounge and took Jupiter's cage cover off. The rain was really pounding now, one of those April line squalls that comes sweeping down the Severn to flush the Annapolis harbor from time to time. The boat had stopped moving as the rain beat the harbor waves flat. Jupiter began to bob and weave, trying to get a look at Branner. Jim sat down in the chair across from her. “There's more,” he said, and then he told her about the Goth girls.

She shook her head in wonder. “And you think Bagger was lured out of the bar by those girls?”

“I do now. The proof will be when he can talk.”

“This is the vampire crowd?”

“Yup. This sounds a lot like another one. I should have stayed with him.”

Branner got up and looked out a porthole. The rain was letting up topside and the first streaks of light were painting the eastern horizon over Eastport. Jim admired her wide, strong shoulders, and the unconscious way she let her body jut this way and that. Definitely a female.

“I need to get back to the hospital,” she said, standing. “I want to be there when Bagger comes up.”

“I've got to file a report this morning on that rocket business. The fire department's probably put one in already. You want me to say that NCIS is going to get into this one?”

“We normally would,” she said, turning back around. As if suddenly aware of her semitransparent blouse, she folded her arms across her chest. He noticed that she had green, faintly lupine eyes. Branner as she-wolf. Worked for him. “But this Dell thing has us running,” she was saying. “I've been trying not to ask for additional resources. But with Bagger down…”

“Why not?” Jim asked. “Calling in a crowd is the government's biggest advantage, especially in a homicide.”

“Who said it was a homicide?” she asked, those green eyes flashing.

Jim didn't answer, and then she realized he'd been talking to Bagger. She came back to the chair and flopped down. “Actually, it could go either way,” she said. “Something's not quite right with Markham's answers. On the other hand, the ME's report is ambiguous. I'm still trying to decide.”

“So it'll be your call?”

“Pretty much. The dant's hating life right now, just wants it all to go the hell away. Here comes all the commissioning week bullshit, the vice president, the Board of Visitors, and they have mids flying off the damned roof.”

“Anybody putting the pressure on you to call it a suicide and move on?” he asked.

“Not in so many words,” she said slowly. He could see that she was unsure about trusting him. “They're sensitive to the command influence problem. But I've been here long enough to read between the lines.”

“You need a statement from me about our little op last night?”

“I guess I do,” she said.

“How much you want me to say about the booze?”

“Could you just say what
you
had to drink?”

“Can do,” he said. “How about the Goth girls?”

“Yes, you should mention them. My bosses know Bagger.”

“I'll have a draft over to you this morning,” he said. “You chop it, and I'll smooth it. I don't want to cause him any trouble.”

“Appreciate that,” she said, holding the jacket out at arm's length like a wet cat. “You and your people pursue the runner. I think this Dell thing's going to come to a head in a few days. Then we'll look into whether or not your runner is connected with Bagger's getting mugged. Then maybe we'll both kick his ass.”

“Is that a date?” he asked, just for the hell of it.

She raised her eyebrows. “You asking me out, Mr. Hall? At this hour of the morning?”

“Well,” he said. “I guess we are going about it bassack-wards. You having already been to my bedroom and all.”

She cocked her head and gave him a speculative look. She was standing now with one hand on her left hip, the other holding the jacket out by one finger, as if she were going to twirl it. He saw a flash of amusement in her eyes. Good morning, America: Maybe there's a real girl in there after all, he thought.

“It was just a thought,” he said finally, remembering that he had paraded in the buff earlier. He got up. “Seeing as we might be kicking a little ass together in the future, that is.”

“Everyone likes a little ass,” she began, glancing at his for an instant. “Or so I'm told. Say, you have an umbrella I can borrow?”

“Is that a yes?” he asked. The rain came down even harder.

“Let me call you,” she said patiently. “An umbrella?”

 

Jim waited in line to refill his coffee cup at 10:30 that morning. Saturday mornings were regular working days, and most of the headquarters staff people were in the building. He had already spent a half hour with the fire marshal working up the report on the rocket incident, and he had just finished bringing Chief Bustamente up to speed on the night in the tunnel and what had happened to Bagger Thompson afterward.

Commander Michaels, his boss, joined him at the coffee mess table. Jim back-briefed him on the tunnel business and asked if he wanted a written report. To Jim's surprise, Michaels shook his head.

“Verbal's good enough right now,” he said, looking out into the hallway to make sure no one was listening. “But look: This Dell thing is turning into a real media firestorm. The possible homicide angle has leaked. Dell's parents have
their congressman into it, and he, for our sins, is on the House subcommittee that has Academy oversight. The supe's so happy, he could just shit.”

“And the dant?”

“Lotsa Dant Dance, last time I saw him. He's ready to Class-A Dell's corpse for causing all this shit.”

Jim got the picture. “In other words, nobody wants to hear more bad news about a mid going out into town and beating up on locals just now?”

“Especially if he's dressing up as a frigging vampire. Frame that as a breaking story on CNN. So, you're the security officer. See if you and your cops can catch this guy, preferably on federal ground. Keep the story in government channels until we get this other thing squashed. You know, one fire at a time, if we can manage it.”

Jim almost told him about the dant's order to get inside the NCIS investigation, but he stopped himself. The chain of command for that had been very specific. “So, I keep you informed?”

Michaels nodded. “Yeah. We don't
know
this is a mid doing this shit, do we?”

“Just a hunch right now.”

“Okay, maybe we'll get lucky on this one. We're overdue.” He looked around the hallway again and lowered his voice. “Look, we've got two weeks left in this academic year, and then all the firsties become enswines, and the rest of the little dears go off to the seven seas for their summer cruise. If we can just get through this Dell mess, we can maybe get things back to normal around this damned place.”

“Whatever normal is,” Jim said. Michaels raised his eyebrows.

“Well, I mean, shit,” Jim said. “A mid gets himself killed; another one is out there consorting with witches and mugging drunks in back alleys. Is this what normal means here now?”

Michaels, who'd been a carrier pilot until a catapult accident had damaged his neck, was also an Academy graduate.
He shook his head. “Gee-go,” he muttered. He filled his coffee mug and left for his office.

Jim stirred his own coffee. GIGO was one of the not-so-secret code words around the office. Garbage in, garbage out. Given all that the Academy had accomplished over the years, it wasn't fair that the 1 percent that was garbage could absolutely demolish the reputation of the 99 percent who were gold. It reminded Jim of his time in the Corps—he had spent 90 percent of his personnel admin time on 5 percent of his Marines.

He went to his own cube to find out the commandant's schedule for the day. Saturdays were more flexible than regular workdays, and he wanted to back-brief him on what he'd learned about the NCIS investigation. Then he wanted to call the hospital and check on Bagger. He still felt bad about the Guinness. He should have been paying more attention.

He wondered if Branner would really call him to go out. That might be more of a thrill than he could stand at his advancing age.

 

Ev had spent Saturday morning in the Nimitz Library, doing some research on the Uniform Code of Military Justice and its bible, the
Manual for Courts-Martial.
The academic offices in Sampson were only about half-occupied for Saturday classes, especially as the academic year drew to a close. Ev taught mostly seniors, and they were definitely slacking off at this stage of the game.

The rainsqualls had quit just after sunrise and the morning dawned cool and clear, with eye-dazzling sunlight. Looking out the office windows, Ev could see the first clumps of weekend tourists filtering down from the Maryland Avenue gate. Now back in his office, he put a call into Liz at home, got voice mail. He tried her office number.

“Morning, counselor,” he said. “I talked to Julie last night. I think we have a problem.”

“Now what?”

“Julie wants to unlawyer. My fault, probably. I got clumsy, made one probe too many.” He filled her in.

“And it was the question about her getting up for early swim practice that set her off?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Did she actually answer it?”

He thought back for a moment. “No. So I've put a call in to the varsity swim coach to see if they're still doing the prereveille sessions, and if so, whether Julie has been involved. But this business about her talking to the NCIS people without you being present…”

“You told her that she'd be going against my advice?”

“Hell, I told her you'd fire her as a client.”

“I won't do that, not yet anyway. But now you're definitely going to have to get into this, Ev. She obviously doesn't want to talk to me just now, and she won't until they scare her.”

“I understand,” he said. “Let me start with the coach. I think we need to establish whether or not Julie could have been out of her room that night—or early morning, I guess.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Oh, I ran into one of the marshals at the sub shop a little while ago. He's heard a rumor that one of the agents from the Academy NCIS office apparently got into some kind of trouble out in town last night. The nice black guy. The word is, he's in the hospital. It gets kinda fuzzy as to what happened, which means the local cops are probably sitting on something.”

“Well, maybe that will distract NCIS, vis-à-vis Julie,” he said hopefully.