Darkside (60 page)

“
Fuck
the Academy's
fucking
image!” Booth shouted. “You think I give a rat's ass about the Academy's image? Didn't give a shit about me. All these years, winning N-stars in swimming, hundred and ten percent on the PFTs, perfect conduct record since plebe year, top ten percent of my class in math and engineering, and half my fucking class crosses the street when I come down the line?”

“Maybe they know something, Mr. Booth. Or maybe they just
feel
something. I don't know. That you in the vampire getup, knocking heads out in Crabtown?”

“Fucking A. Got behind you, too, didn't I?”

Jim thought he heard something moving along the ledge outside his window. No noise, he prayed. Not a sound. “Yeah, you did. Have to admit, you've got vampire makeup
down cold. So what was up with all that? You pissed off at civilians in general, or just townies?”

“Practicing for the Corps, man. Plus entertaining my pussy posse.”

“Oh, yeah, the Goths; I've seen them. Coyote-ugly, most of them. Tell me you're not into all that bullshit, are you? Drinking blood? Worshiping at the altar of Death? Somehow, I can't quite feature you and Marilyn Manson on a date.”

Booth laughed. “Fuck no, the only part of the Goths I was into was between their legs. They're professionally bored, so I had to play the part to get it on with them. You know, here's an Academy dude, only he's back in black. Had my pick, man. Had my pick.”

“It was me, I'd have to be a little drunk, do one of those weirdos. I mean, like that whiteface shit? They always look like they're about to puke right through their nose rings.”

Booth grinned, showing all those teeth again for just a second longer than necessary. It was obviously a move he'd perfected. Jim could just imagine what that would be like underwater. Then he heard another sound, above his head. He was sure of it this time. The TAC squad must be moving, trying to get a line on Julie Markham before Fuck Face there opened the window and let her drop. He wondered where Branner was, and whether or not the listeners on the radio circuit could hear Booth. He had to keep Booth's attention. “That shit in the tunnels—that was pretty impressive. How long have you been running?”

“Since youngster year, Mr. Security O. Just like I've been into the Brigade intranet since youngster year. And the faculty LAN, too. Shit, I had the exams before the head of the department. Then I found that old magazine space, got it set up for my computer lab. Dumb-ass PWC dudes were too scared to go down there. Especially after I showed up one night in the Drac rags and ran off a coupla their guys.”

“They never mentioned that, although you're right—they weren't too keen on going down there. But I thought you were a supergeek. What'd you need the exams for?”

“Two reasons. One: to sell them. Oh, that surprises you?
Think there might be a little ethics problem out there in the Blue and Gold Brigade?”

“I suppose there are always some rotten apples in the barrel. What was your other reason?”

“I'm a data dink. Couldn't do bull. They told me it's a brain thing. The bull department cut me no slack. Always with the fucking essay questions. So I'd get the questions, pay some smart dude to write me up some answers, all hypothetical, and do it that way.”

“And you're telling me that midshipmen are buying and selling exams?”

“Guys in trouble are. It's a little like loan-sharking—only guys in trouble come to the Shark. Shit, the rest of these dudes are so square, they'd faint dead away at the thought. Got that honor bug so far up their asses, they can't walk and fart at the same time.”

“And you got Markham's father to tutor you in reading?”

Booth's expression changed slightly, with some of the arrogance draining out of it. “So what if I did?” he said. “I lusted after her sweet ass, figured it wouldn't be a bad move to get close to her old man. Find out where she went weekends. Where home was. Had a feeling about her, that maybe she wasn't the straight-arrow chick everybody thought she was.”

“She told us about the UVA meet. The party.”

Booth grinned, back in the driver's seat again. Jim wanted to look at his watch, but he didn't dare distract Booth.

“I won everything down there. Clean sweep. I think maybe that's why she finally came across at that UVA party. Or maybe it was the roofie I put in her drink. Don't remember. I do remember
her,
though. Hot and sweet. Did she tell you there was a video? Talk about a starring role.”

“So what the hell was the big deal about Brian Dell?” Jim asked. “Seems like kind of a little guy for someone your size to be running.”

“You go here?” Booth asked. He appeared to be listening. Had he heard the team on the roof? Jim shifted in his chair, which brought Booth's full concentration back to him.

“Yeah. Then I went Marine option.”

“That was my plan,” Booth said, cupping the barrel of the big .45 into the palm of his left hand. “Dell? Little shit got on my nerves. He was passive. No balls at all. He was just so fucking weak. Other plebes, you'd run 'em until they finally show a little defiance. But not Dell. I ordered him to wear girls' panties to his late-night come-arounds, and damned if he didn't do it. Said he got 'em out of the girls' locker rooms. Piece a shit faggot plebe. Didn't belong here.”

“So, tell me: How'd he end up going off that roof? This roof, I guess,” Jim said, gesturing at the window behind him. The moment he moved his hand, the .45 was pointing straight back across the hall. Booth had the reflexes of a rattlesnake.

“I think he got embarrassed, Hall-Man-Chu. Guy in panties on his knees in your room late at night? You figure it out.”

“Can't feature you as a gay blade, Mr. Booth. Big strong guy like you. Going Marine option and everything.”

Booth let a triumphant look spread across his face. “You ask Hot Wheels if I'm gay, man. She'll tell you, and I have the video to prove it. But Dell? Shit. Mouth's a mouth, man. What the hell did I care?”

“So you're saying he offed himself? Out of embarrassment?”

“Well, he—”

An imperious and familiar voice from out in the corridor interrupted, demanding to know what the goddamned hell was going on. Jim cringed. The dant had arrived. Booth's face lost all expression. He got up, came around the desk, pointing the .45 right at Jim's chest, and stopped just inside his doorway. Jim half-expected Branner to take him out from across the hall, but then he realized that Branner might be on the roof.

“What is the meaning of this, mister?” Robbins yelled. The big midshipman looked down at him with an expression of such contempt, Jim thought he was going to shoot the
commandant right then and there. Robbins was so angry, he was starting the Dant Dance, probably not even realizing he was doing it. His fists were clenched and his face was turning purple.

“You!” Booth shouted at Jim. “Hands on top of your head. Twitch and you'll have three eyes, understood?”

“Okay, okay,” Jim said hurriedly, clasping his hands on top of his head. “Let's not get all excited here. Nobody's going to do anything. Not the captain, not me.” He said that to alert the TAC squad that there was a new complication. He could just see Robbins frozen in place beyond the right side of his door. Booth filled his own doorway. The kid was really big. And pissed off. He leveled the gun, trained it on the commandant, and ordered him to get on his knees. Robbins tried some more bluster, but then Booth thumbed back the hammer and Robbins gulped audibly.

“Get on your
fucking
knees, dickwad,” Booth spat out.

Robbins, ashen now as he began to appreciate the danger he was in, sank to his knees, his hands held out in front of him as if he didn't know what to do with them. Jim tried to think of something to say so that the listening cops would know what was going on, but he couldn't come up with anything there, either.

“Got word you wanted to see me, your highness. So now you can see me, right? Got something to say?”

Robbins swallowed hard, cleared his throat, but nothing came out. Jim could just barely see the commandant's trembling hands. The captain was clearly terrified now.

“C'mon, Short Round,” Booth taunted. “You're the big fucking deal in this building. You always have something to say. Spit it out, motherfucker!”

Robbins's mouth was working, but no words came out. Then Booth fired twice, blasting a pair of those huge slugs on either side of Robbins's knees. The bullets ricocheted off the floor, one shattering a glass door pane, the other exploding a fluorescent fixture in the ceiling. Booth stepped farther out into the corridor and fired three more rounds at the floor
next to the terrified commandant. The rounds went howling down the corridor, smashing windows at the far end. The noise was deafening, and Jim felt his fingers unclasping, but he commanded them not to move, which was a good thing, because now the .45 was aimed back at him. There was a haze of gun smoke in the hallway. Robbins was prostrate on the floor. Booth was already back inside his doorway.

“Awfully quiet down there, Superman,” Booth said. “Or are you too busy pissing your pants? Goddamn, man, look at that. It's a fucking lake. You really needed to water your snake, didn't you? Look at that! Get all those medals and ribbons wet, did you,
Dee
?”

Robbins, whose eyes were still closed, was making whimpering sounds down on the floor. “C'mon, Booth,” Jim said. “You've had your fun. He's not part of this, is he?”

“He's probably the biggest part of this there is,
Jim.
All those ethics and morality sermons he made us sit through? That look like a stand-up guy to you, Hall?”

“Like I said, he's not part of
this,
” Jim said. “This scene right here. This is about you, Mr. Booth. You're here to pay back Julie Markham, and then you're going to show us all what you're made of, right? I mean, shit, it's not like you're going anywhere, except maybe out to Leavenworth. You beat up a federal officer so bad, he died. You probably disappeared that Goth freak, Hermione whatever, the one you left behind in the tunnel that night. You personally wrecked the entire underground engineering facilities for this end of the Yard. You've cheated your way through school, made a mockery of everything this place stands for. Now you've made the dant piss his pants. You surely don't think they're gonna let you throw your hat with the rest of your class, do you?”

Jim stopped, because he saw the look spreading across Booth's face. The kid's hand was trembling ever so slightly. Jim tried to remember how many rounds that gun carried. Not that many, not like the nines everybody carried today. He also remembered that the thing was impossibly
heavy, even for someone of Booth's heft. Seven rounds, that was it.

“C'mon, Mr. Booth. Send that pissant back down the hall before he craps and makes the place smell really bad.”

Booth grinned at that and nodded. There was a gleam in the kid's eyes now that hadn't been there before. Drugs? Meth? Where was the SWAT team? How would he know when they had Julie? Then he realized something: They might manage to get a line on Julie, but they couldn't move her until Booth opened that window. Based on what he could see of the extended shade, she was hanging by her knees, literally.

“Get out of here, you fucking worm,” Booth said, waving the gun at Robbins. “Slide on back down the passageway, the way you came. Only now you'll slide better, all wet like that.
Move
it, asswipe!”

Robbins didn't hesitate. He started to get up, but Booth aimed the gun right at his head, and the dant subsided with a squeak. He began to inch his way backward, literally leaving a trail on the polished linoleum. When he'd gone fifty feet back, he turned around, still crawling, and went on hands and knees like a frantic turtle until he disappeared around the corner.

Booth backed into his room, checking to see that the shade was still in place on the window. Then he sat down again, facing Jim.

“So you figured this deal out, huh?” he said. “That why you're here? You wanna watch?”

“I figured this has been coming for some time, Booth. That you knew you'd probably never make it out of here. I mean, after Dell, there's been too much heat. And all that shit down in the tunnels? But you nearly succeeded, you know.”

“Yeah. They were gonna sweep it, weren't they? Until that NCIS bitch got in the way.”

“She's pushy, I'll say that,” Jim said, trying to keep it going. Then he saw a shadow flick past the tan shade behind Booth. All
right.
They were on the roof and they were doing
something to retrieve Markham. “So why the hell did you even come here? You don't believe in any of this honor stuff. You hold the whole program in contempt. You came from nothing. What were you thinking?”

“A full boat to a degree and a commission. What else, man? That's what everybody here came in for.”

“Not me, Booth. I believed all that stuff about duty, honor, country.”

“Nobody believes that shit,
Jim.
All we have to do is watch how the Dark Side behaves. Hell, they knew the Dell thing wasn't right, but they were willing to hold sweepers on it.”

Another shadow. Keep it going. “And you wanted to be a Marine?”

“Damn straight. At least the Marines are up-front about what they're all about. Shock troops. Stone killers. Kill a Commie for mommy. The light green machine. Pure. Simple. Hell, you know.”

“I know you'd have never made it through Quantico, that's what I know.”

“The fuck you mean? Look at me, man. I could eat all that platoon commander shit up for breakfast.”

Jim realized that he was approaching the break point here. He needed to get Booth angry enough so that the guy focused exclusively on him, but without getting himself shot. The TAC team could listen to him talking, and hopefully know when to move. “Wrong, Booth, because the Corps's always on the lookout for psychos like you. For sick puppies who like to dress up and paint their faces. Who get young boys to do nasty things. They'd Section-Eight your ass in a heartbeat.”