Darkside (44 page)

 

Went bowling last night. Not duck pins—more like fuck pins. It was really kind of funny, watching those cops doing the funky chicken trying to get away from my little surprise. Running around down there like scared rabbits. And then I talked to them on their own radio circuit—that was perfect. They still don't get it. Those are my tunnels, not their tunnels. They think they can catch me with motion detectors, and then they come up on a clear tactical radio frequency and let me listen. Keystone Kops. They ought to be making movies. And when it was all over? They just leave. I think they don't like it down there. I saw a couple of the Yard cops, and they were spending more time looking around at all that concrete than they were looking for me. I could have reached out and touched two of them once I put the lights out. Too bad I didn't have my vampire rags. Tap one of those
fat bastards on the shoulder and give him a quick look and a big old friendly hiss? Would have had two moving sewage leaks.

The security guy is the one behind all this. Messing with my tag. Bringing that redhead agent down there with him. You know who I mean. The one that goes around here showing off her legs while shining that untouchable attitude. She's not even pretty, not like some of my classmates, right? No, she's a hard case. Talks tough. Hell on wheels when it comes to hassling mids, but not so good when she comes down into my part of our dear old Academy. I'm going to have to deal with her, too, I think. Word is, she's hassling the hell out of a bunch of firsties. Over that Dell thing. Well, shit. I guess they have to go through the motions, don't they? I mean, plebe does a Peter Pan, God, I love that line, and at least they have to seem like they're doing something about a mess like that. Have you seen the newspapers? Banging on about the hazing, how it's getting out of hand. Hell, that wasn't hazing. I think it was like the ultimate come-around. You know, like the TV show? Come around, plebe. Or maybe, Come on down! Damned if he didn't. And dressed for the occasion, too.

I can read the Executive Department E-mails. Did you know that? Can't read the ones from NCIS—they're encrypted, so that's that. Too hard. But I can read everything the little dant's efficient assistant is sending out, and isn't he a regular motormouth. I think my little deal here is going to work. I think someone's going down—ahem, that was a poor choice of words, I guess. I think someone's going to be blamed for what happened to Baby Brian Dell. Not the precious system, either. I think someone's going to be “responsible” in part—yes, that's the term they're using. Responsible in part, so they can point and say, There he is. Or is it, There she is? Yes, I think this is going to work. But first, I need to attend to a loose end. Someone who knows a little more than he should. Probably because someone else talked too much. People shouldn't talk so much. Either way, I'm going to up the ante somewhat. Try
my hand at some electrical work, right here in Mother Bancroft. You'll know what I'm talking about when you hear about it. Yes, you will.

Meantime, I think I'll go sharpen my dress sword. Now there's a thing of beauty. It doesn't talk, doesn't make phone calls, doesn't send E-mails. It just hangs there in my closet along with my Marine dress blues. I put my gloves on before I handle it. Keeps it nice and shiny. I've got one right-hand glove that's got a dozen cuts across the thumb where I test the blade. It's not really supposed to be sharp, you know, or maybe you don't. It's just for ceremonies. But then, I know some ceremonies that aren't in the drill manual, if you catch my drift. I can shave with that thing; that's how sharp it is. Actually, I can't shave myself—a little awkward. But I can shave somebody else, and I did, just once.

Some little guy. Into occasional high-risk gymnastics. Said he wanted to fly. And so he did.

On Thursday morning, Jim went upstairs to the supe's office to see the commandant's schedule for the day. He wanted to back-brief him on the previous day's events. The commandant, however, had gone to Washington for the day with the superintendent. Admiral McDonald's executive assistant declined to share with Jim the purpose of the trip. Jim took the horse-holder's rebuff in stride and went to find some coffee at the mess table. Two junior officers were talking there, so he poured a cup of coffee and then joined them.

“So where are the elephants off to this morning?” he asked no one in particular. One of the JO's said he'd heard that the supe was briefing SecNav on some personnel issues. “You know, this Dell mess. And something about an NCIS agent getting beat up? Like out in town?”

Jim pretended this was all news to him and headed for his office, where he put a call in to Branner. “You hear from Midshipman Hays yet?” he asked when she picked up.

“There's a message from him,” she said. “Wants a meet at twelve hundred.”

“Want me there?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “What's the word from the head shed?”

“Big and not so big are in D.C., briefing the SecNav on ‘personnel issues' scuttlebutt here is that it's the Dell case
and
what happened to Bagger.”

“Really,” she said. “Maybe I better pulse my network again; I called headquarters this morning, but nobody told me that.”

“Maybe that's the message,” he said. “They're getting ready to do something. Did you report what happened last night?”

“Not exactly. Left a message for Harry Chang to call me.”

Jim thought for a moment. “If the séance concerns what happened to Bagger, I'm surprised you weren't pulled in.”

“Probably some of our heavies from the Navy Yard
were
pulled in. Chang's out of pocket, and they wouldn't tell me where. The dant knows what we're doing, right?”

“I've been back-briefing since it started,” he said. “But I can never tell what the hell the real agenda is when I talk to Robbins. We'd better catch some real deal progress at this noon meeting, or I think we're gonna get sidelined.”

“Meaning they'll slap a lid on it and declare the thing solved. The Dell thing anyway. Bagger's case, they'll probably turn over to the city cops. You know, cop got clipped. Let 'em enjoy a little urban frenzy.”

They were both silent for a moment. “Hey?” he said. “I enjoyed your company last night. It was nice just to talk.”

“It was nice. Even without the gin rummy.”

“If you want to come over again, the access code is four-three-two-one-five, as in four, three, two, one, fire.”

“Four, three, two, one, fire. Got it. See you at noon.”

Jim spent the next half hour on paperwork, then signed out for the Public Works Center and drove over to the power plant to meet with the utility supervisors. They pored over the system maps while Jim made a new map, this one of the grating entrances to the entire underground area. They talked about the fact that the Fort Severn diagrams were wrong, but no one seemed to get too upset about that. It was a no-go area, and that was that. Jim didn't enlighten them about the fact that the one magazine had been rigged to appear flooded.

“I've been asking about the ways
into
the underground system,” he said. “What about the ways
out
of it?”

That provoked some blank stares, but then the senior engineer got the sewage-handling and transfer-system maps out. “This is a system that goes out of the underground area, but naturally, it stays sealed.”

“We fervently hope,” offered one of the engineers. Everyone smiled.

“What else—how about smoke evacuation in the case of an underground fire?”

“Big exhaust fans in parallel with each of the grates,” the engineer said. “Depending on where the fire is, we'd try to close some fire doors to isolate it, then exhaust the oxygen supply. But the system's been added onto for so long, it's pretty porous.”

“How big are the exhaust ducts?”

“Four by four, but they're filled with fan blades and vent screens. Nobody could get through one of those.”

“Any other ways out?”

They all thought about it for a moment. “There's the storm drain,” another engineer said, then pointed it out on the main map. “In case there was flooding, the water would flow down to the river—gravity.”

“Could our guy get in or out that way?”

“Tough,” the chief engineer said. “Permanent, big grating on the seawall. Submerged except at really low tide. Plus, the flaps here open only one way, and only with water pressure on the tunnel side.”

Jim nodded. “So, the sewage system is completely sealed, and there's just the one storm drain? No direct connections between Bancroft Hall and the utility tunnels?”

“No, sir. Everything going from the tunnel into Bancroft is a pipe or a wireway. Nothing big enough for a human.”

Jim thanked them and took his annotated maps with him. He drove back to the office, where he left the truck. Then he walked down across the Yard from the administration building, passed between Michelson and Chauvenet halls, then crossed the Ingram track field and went out onto the wide expanse of Dewey Field, right along the Severn River. If the diagrams were correct, that storm drain ought to be in the
middle of the seawall bounded by Dewey Field.

He was operating under the old Sherlock Holmes principle: When all the other possibilities have been eliminated, the one staring you in the face, however improbable, has to be the answer. They had had teams on all the gratings last night. Assuming his guys hadn't been asleep at the switch, the runner hadn't used a grating. He hadn't flushed himself down a toilet, and he couldn't morph through the exhaust fans. The route through the old magazine was a possibility, but until he actually found a surface exit, he didn't know that the thing actually led to the Yard. That left the storm drain.

He walked the entire length of the Dewey Field seawall without finding it, then remembered the engineer's comment about the tides. The grating was submerged most of the time. He looked over the wall and saw that it was high tide, or very close to it. He watched the water. The streak of flotsam along the seawall seemed to be edging its way out toward the bay. Ebb tide under way? He decided to come back after the meeting with Hays. He went back to the upper end of Dewey Field and carefully paced the distance to where the storm drain should be. It supposedly ran under the walkways that sloped up to the chapel. When he reached the point where his pacing told him the drain ought to be, he looked up and saw that he was lined up with the steps between Michelson and Chauvenet. Perfect. The drain had been run so as to not penetrate either of the two academic buildings. So this was where it should be. There was a metal railing along the seawall. He got out his pocket knife and scratched an
X
in the railing at the point where he thought the seawall grate should be.

He looked around. It was close to eleven o'clock and already the first of the noontime joggers were out on Ingram. He watched for a few minutes to see if anyone appeared to be interested in what he was doing out there on the seawall. He was dressed in his usual coat and tie office outfit. Probably look like just another alumnus, he thought, recalling those thrilling days of yesteryear when he'd been a midship
man. And the program had been a whole lot tougher then, by God, sir. A whole lot tougher. He grinned and went to see if he could find a sandwich somewhere before his noon meeting.

As he was walking back up into the Yard, his cell phone chirped. It was the lady lawyer, Liz DeWinter.

“Mr. Hall,” she said. “Got a minute to talk?”

“I'm on my cell,” he warned.

“Yes, I know. Your chief gave me your number. This concerns a person of mutual interest.”

Julie Markham, he thought. “Go ahead.”

“What's your current thinking on the railroad business, Mr. Hall?”

He found an empty park bench and sat down. A group of Japanese tourists were being herded up Stribling toward Mother B. for the noon meal formation. The drum and bungle corps was thumping something martial in the central plaza, the drums echoing madly around the wings of Bancroft, creating a cacophony of rhythms. “The railroad business is still a possibility,” he said. “Although I have no direct indications, I can tell you the management is less than pleased with the subject.”

“My subject.”

“Your subject, yes.
Uncooperative
is the term, I believe.”

“I've heard a rumor, Mr. Hall. That the subject might be held back on throw-the-hats day. Until the matter is resolved. Can they do that?”

“Absolutely, counselor. Sometimes there are matters of academic probation to resolve. Sometimes health issues—whether the candidate for commissioning is still physically qualified for commissioning, for instance. Football players end up in that situation often enough.”

“So they can if they want to?”

“Affirmative.”

“Any progress on the underlying issue?”

“Not that I can share. But I can offer some advice.”

“Shoot.”

“The subject should stop screwing around.” Then something else occurred to him. “You might also probe whether or not she's under some kind of pressure other than from the system. Anyone, inside or outside, another mid even.”

Liz didn't answer right away. “Noted,” she said finally. “I'll get in touch with the subject as soon as possible.”

He looked at his watch. “Time is probably of the essence, counselor,” he said, thinking of the meeting coming up in fifteen minutes. He reminded himself to tell Branner about this call.

 

Jim and Branner arrived together at the commandant's office right at noon. The noon meal formation was just getting under way out front. The secretary went to get Captain Rogers, then returned to show them into Rogers's office, where they found the captain and Midshipman Hays standing next to the deputy's desk.

“What do you have for us, Mr. Hays?” Branner asked.

“Nothing to report, ma'am,” Hays replied, facing straight ahead and not looking directly at either of them.

“What the hell? Over,” Jim said quietly.

“Sir, I spoke at length with Midshipman Markham. She insists she knows nothing about the Dell incident. She doesn't know what happened to him or why it happened. She said we could ask anybody, talk to anybody, but it wouldn't change anything.”

“And that's it?” Branner said. “All this stuff about the big bad Brigade Honor Committee in the sky—she didn't
care
?”

“I'm sure she cares, ma'am,” Hays said, his demeanor stiffly formal. “But she insists she's telling the truth.”

“In other words: You do your damnedest; I don't care because I've nothing to hide?” Jim said.

“Yes, sir, essentially that's it.”

Captain Rogers intervened. “We said at the outset that the Honor Committee had no real leverage here unless Midship
man Markham was hiding something,” he said. “If she isn't, there's no case, honor or otherwise.”

“I don't actually recall you saying that,” Branner said. She stared at Hays. “You're telling me that you got nowhere? That even the threat of an honor investigation this close to graduation didn't make any difference to Markham?”

Hays glanced over at Rogers. “Not sure how to answer that, ma'am,” Hays said.

Branner shook her head and looked at Jim. “I think we're done here, Mr. Hall,” she announced. “Now we'll do it the hard way.”

“What exactly does that mean, Agent Branner?” Rogers asked.

“It means I detect obstruction, Captain. I'm going to report to
my
chain of command that I smell a cover-up in progress, aided and abetted by the Academy's administration. Mr. Hall, we're outta here.” She headed for the door, her face flushed with anger.

“But—but—” Rogers spluttered.

“You say graduation was planned for when, Captain?” Branner said over her shoulder. “You know the old deal when there's a homicide investigation and the cops tell the suspects,
all
the suspects, not to leave town?”

Rogers gaped at her as she led Jim through the door and out into the executive corridor. There they had to wait as the entire Brigade, all four thousand of them, filed through the side doors on their way down to the mess hall. Once the way was clear, they went through the big doors and down the steps toward Tecumseh Court, where the crowd of tourists was breaking up after watching the show. Branner's heels were clacking forcefully on the brickwork. Jim decided not to speak until they were halfway across the courtyard in front of Bancroft Hall.

“And the Oscar goes to—” he said.

“Shut up and keep walking,” she said. “They're probably watching.”

“And thinking about getting clean skivvies,” he said with
a barely suppressed grin. “Did you see Rogers's face when you threatened to hold up graduation?”

“I did, and it made me feel just a wee bit better.”

“Not that you can do anything of the sort.”

“No, I can't. But they don't have to know that just yet. I need to call Harry Chang.”

They turned left at the bronze bust of Chief Tamamend, the massive figurehead from the sailing ship
Delaware,
which adorned the entrance to Bancroft Hall's front courtyard. By tradition, everyone called him Tecumseh, hence Tecumseh Court. “I was really hoping that honor thing would work,” she said. “But it looks like Markham's holding her ground. We're nowhere.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Jim said. “I was watching Hays through all that. He wouldn't look at either one of us directly. I think I need to get to him in private, somehow. Find out what really happened.”