The Circle (15 page)

“Boatswain's mate.”

“Aye, sir.” Pettus came out of the chart room, smoothing back his hair.

The wind hissed and clawed like a cat at the gap, blowing in white flakes that whirled in brief devils on the deck before they melted. He couldn't make out if it was snow or frozen spray.

The third-class stayed by the hatch, rubbing at the fogged glass and staring out. Dan watched him, feeling something corrosive and new gnaw at his heart. Had Pettus been on the fantail last night? He was the right age. So he was a petty officer. Did that make him proof against Lassard's influence? The sailor turned from the window to meet Dan's stare. He nodded, looking simply very young and tired and bored, then went back into the chart room. Dan stared after him. Christ, he thought. I'm starting to suspect people just because of their age. Just like Bryce.

“Captain's on the bridge,” drawled Coffey from behind the wheel.

“Carry on,” said Packer, looming into the pilothouse. Both the officers had turned at the helmsman's traditional phrase. The captain, not looking at either of them, crossed the bridge with a heavy gait and hoisted himself into his chair. Evlin went over to stand beside him.

Dan bent to the scope again, more to hide his face than to search for nonexistent contacts. Above the rattle of spray and the sizzle of the International Distress receivers, he heard them discussing the distance to the next course on the curved Great Circle route they were steaming to the operating area.

For some reason he had a sudden image of the submerged sensor, slipping silently through the dark sea hundreds of feet down, a metal fish, a submarine kite, an electronic ear tuned to the subtlest whispers of the deep.

The voices ceased. Dan heard the scratch of a lighter, smelled the captain's mixture. He lifted his eyes, examining him over the hood.

Packer's body was set into the chair like hardened concrete. He was staring out the window, jetting short puffs of smoke. The wiper cleared the windshield every two seconds, allowing half a second of clear sight of endless seas exploding one by one against the stem, before the spume froze again into opacity. Packer's swarthy face—tan? Skin tone? Looked hard, peasantlike, like a Soviet tractor driver's. The chair, elevated for a good view of the forecastle, vibrated as
Ryan
jarred into a trough like a harvester hitting a deep ditch.

Through nausea and fatigue, Dan felt a trickle of envy. Motion didn't bother the captain, nor lack of sleep. He never gave any indication of caring what his officers thought of him, or that he ever doubted himself. Part of him wanted to be like Packer. Another part wondered whether any man should be that silent, that self-assured, that … alone. Was Silver's scuttlebutt true—his wife, his son, his career…?

Could he endure that? Losing everything, because he'd done what he thought was right? He tried to imagine losing Betts. He couldn't. To have love, then lose it … life wouldn't be worth the effort to breathe and eat after that.

“Captain,” said Evlin. Packer looked blindly at the officer of the deck, his face remote and a little astonished before it focused, like binoculars being adjusted to a closer view.

“What is it?”

“Noon weather, sir.”

“What's it say?”

“Force six in operating area Kilo right now. Poor visibility in spray and precipitation. Predict that will continue for the next three days. Possibility of storms after that.”

“Very well.”

The lieutenant retreated and Packer covered his eyes, propping hand-tooled western boots on a radio repeater. Dan watched him covertly as a roll leaned him against the armrest. The skipper grunted, stirred, then opened his eyes again. He drew his pouch and began the ritual of clearing and restuffing his pipe. His jaw bunched around the stem and he scowled forward, sucking blue flame into the bowl, as a squall broke on the windows and hammered on the steel just above their heads.

Again Dan tried to imagine what he was thinking about. The squall? The upcoming operation? His son? His mind retreated from the terrifying dilemmas of another soul. Then he remembered he had something to tell him.

“What are you smoking, Captain?” he asked before he had time to think about it.

Packer blinked and turned his head. “Hullo, uh, Dan … what, this? Two-thirds latakia, one-third burley. Touch of cavendish for scent. You doing okay aboard?”

“Well, in general, yes, sir.”

“Getting enough rest?”

“Well, no sir, I'm pretty tired,” he said, then felt his face heat. Packer spent twice as much time on the bridge as any of the watch standers. He'd been in his chair all last night, smoking wordlessly in the dark and staring out the window the entire time the radar was down. “I mean, I guess everybody is—”

“You get used to it,” said the captain, as if he understood what Lenson was thinking. He tapped the pipe against his teeth and slid his eyes sideways to Dan's, then beyond him. “I never did get to welcome you aboard properly, did I? Understand you slipped last night, almost went overboard.”

“I
did
go overboard, sir. And it wasn't a slip. Has Commander Bryce talked to you about it?”

“He mentioned it briefly. What do you mean, it wasn't a slip?”

He lowered his voice. “I mean I was pushed, sir. That's what I told the exec, too. Sir, should we talk about this here? Or could we—”

The captain's face had altered subtly. He straightened, somewhat stiffly, and swung his legs down from the chair. “Al, can you live without your JOD for a couple of minutes? I'll bring him right back.”

“Sure, sir. If you say so.”

The captain's sea cabin was just aft of the bridge. Dan followed him in, grabbing the jamb as
Ryan
screwed her way through a wave. “Sit down,” grunted Packer.

The cabin was ten feet by seven, with a brown metal work desk, a round coffee table, thin green carpet with paths worn into it, and a porthole. Packer folded himself onto a leatherette settee. His legs stuck up awkwardly, showing the tops of the boots. The coffee table was covered with message traffic and three-ring binders marked
BUPERS
and
NAVORD
and
JAG.
An inch-high pyramid of ash smoldered in a huge cobalt glass ashtray. Dan noted several Camel butts in the pile with the used pipe tobacco. Packer pointed at the other end of the settee.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Dan, I'm sorry if I've neglected a new officer. Getting under way on short notice, and I've had to spend a lot of time in the engineering spaces; Ed's got real problems down there. Maybe Ginnie and—” He stopped. “Maybe I'll have you over to the apartment when we get back, you and—Susan?”

“Susan. Her nickname's Betts. Yes, sir, that'd be great, sir.”

Packer leaned forward, cupping the pipe. “Ben told me you had a close call, but he didn't mention being pushed. He says you're not clear what happened. That right?”

“Not perfectly clear, sir, it was dark. But clear enough to know there were other people out there with me, and more than one of them were trying to force me over the side.”

“Who?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“Any guesses?”

“I figure it's part of the deck gang.”

“Why?”

“Well, it just seems logical, sir. Rich—I mean, Lieutenant Norden thought so, too.” He explained about discovering Lassard sitting down on watch, about catching them in the whaleboat at general quarters.

“You mean, after having a set-to with him a few minutes before, and so forth. Yeah, it's logical, but it's not the kind of thing you can do much with legally.” Packer shook his head angrily; arcs of smoke drifted up, then were shredded by the overhead blower. “Why would Ben leave that part out?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“This isn't the first time something like this has happened. I knew a lieutenant was killed on the
Cony.
Medical officer. Guy in the air-conditioning gang picked up the clap in Turkey and made some kind of deal with him to leave it off his record so his wife wouldn't know. Then the guy got it in his head somehow that the doctor had
given
it to him, that people were talking about him, so on and so forth. Nut case. But he turned himself in—or maybe they caught him with the knife, I don't remember. Anyway, there was no question about whether it actually happened.”

“This happened, sir,” he said. It had been the same the night before with Bryce—only worse. The exec had all but accused him of making it up. He flushed at the memory. He'd thought officers told the truth and were assumed to have done so. Another fairy tale bites the dust. But something in Packer's manner reassured him. “What do you recommend we do, sir?”

“Several possibilities,” said Packer, tamping tobacco with a little tool. “One: I could send off a criminal investigation report. That would probably get us ordered to Reykjavik, have the Naval Investigative Service meet us at the pier. Or they might cancel the tests, send us back to Newport.

“That raises a problem. This is an important operation we're on. As you know. They're holding up purchase authorization on this gear till we get back. But CNO might figure the way things are going, fleet discipline requires it.

“But what'll really happen is, they'll do the investigation, do the interviews, and finally conclude they can't tell who was involved. And we can't punish on the basis of logic alone. So we lose all around.”

“I see,” said Dan. He recognized the captain didn't like that alternative. He couldn't see much in it, either. “What are the other possibilities, sir?”

“Well, I have the power, according to the manual, to convene a board and investigate it here.” Packer's eyes flared into brilliance over the lighter. “That would take time. Chew hell out of the wardroom. But what worries me is, it'd spread the story all over the ship. That could be bad. Considering how much longer we got to go out here. And I don't think they'd find anything, either.”

“Who would chair that, sir?”

“Probably the XO.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, bottom line, my recommendation might well be to cool it. Play it close to our chest. Goes without saying don't repeat this, and it's a hard thing to say, but—I don't trust this crew. Their morale, their attitude. Nam's tearing the Navy apart. I don't know what's going to happen to the service.

“But that's beside the point, we've got to live with it. But we'll put the word out to the wardroom. And all of us will be more careful moving about the decks.”

Dan felt his mind searching cautiously along alternate paths. He recognized that the captain wanted his input. But the decision, like every decision made aboard this steel planet, was Packer's responsibility in the end. “I don't know, sir. Seems to me we ought to do something. Otherwise, they might try it again.”

“You think I'm advocating the quietus. I'm not, or at least not for the reasons someone with a cynical mind might think.

“See, if there was no question it was attempted murder, there'd be no hesitation—we'd investigate. But the lifelines were down for repair—they may not have known that. Somebody might have gone back for a smoke and lost their balance on a roll and knocked you over when they didn't mean to. Could it have been that way? Think about it.”

Dan thought. For quite a while. Finally he said, “I guess it's
possible,
sir. Being as truthful as I can. If they were still unused to the darkness, and I startled them doing something back there, it's conceivable they didn't mean to force me over the side. But I think they did.”

“I don't have to tell you, this doesn't make you look good, either. How long have you been with us now? Eight days? Have you made such red-hot enemies in that short a time?”

“Well, I didn't think so, sir.”

“And of course none from previous cruises in this case.… No, it's unlikely.” Packer glanced at the bulkhead. Dan saw he had a compass and rudder indicator there. “I'd hate like hell to break this cruise. It's not the usual training crapola. You know, Dan, the commodore didn't think the squadron could sign up for it until I guaranteed him we'd come through. We worked three shifts welding everything back together. Despite what I said about the crew, some of them sweated blood to get us out here. Now, if there's one thing I've learned in the Navy, it's ‘don't overreact.' I think an investigation would be overreacting on this one.

“Ben says he asked you to write out what happened, a statement.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Got it done?”

“Just about, sir.”

“Make it brief and factual. It if says basically what you just told me, I'll file it by message and tell the squadron staff what's going on. If they want to overrule me, so be it.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“But—
but
—only on the condition that you have no bellyache about it. Because if you're right, you're the one who's at risk.”

“I guess I'll sign up for that, Captain. If you think that's the best thing to do.”

“That's the spirit. Whatever, I agree with you on Lassard. I don't care how shorthanded we are, we've got to bottom-blow that bastard. He's off
Ryan
the minute we hit port. Administrative transfer, if nothing else. Christ, I'm glad we didn't lose you, though.”

“So am I, sir.”

Packer got up. “Okay,” he said, slapping Dan's back. His hand was solid but his gaze was already long, as if he'd already dismissed him; as if he were looking through the steel into the sea. Turning his head, Dan saw that, yes, the captain was looking out the porthole at an approaching squall. “You did right to come to me on this. Let me have that statement as soon as you get it fixed up, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”