At the Thursday-morning staff conference, the commandant was in the admiral’s chair to take the morning briefing. Jim Hall was sitting in again, this time in place of his boss. The commandant had been complaining that the Dell incident could not have come at a worse time. The papers were reciting the usual litany of recent scandals, the football player rape case, the expulsion of four mids in 1999 and five others in 1998 for sexual misconduct, and the quarterback plebe case in 1997. All the familiar Academy haters were popping back out of their holes, and the alumni were once again viewing the situation with alarm. None of the staffers knew what to say about all that, so they prudently said nothing.
“Okay,” Robbins said. “Last item. Mr. Hall, you have an incident to report?”
“Yes, sir. Apparently, the tunnel runners are active again.”
The commandant shook his head in frustration. “I don’t understand that bullshit,” he said. “Why the hell would anyone want to go down there?”
“Because they’re not supposed to be down there, sir,” Jim replied. “It’s mostly a game. We chase ’em; they run. I think it’s the same guy or guys doing it, and of course they can get out into town through the tunnels. Running the tunnels has replaced going over the wall.”
“When I was here, no one wanted to get out into town that bad,” Robbins said.
Jim didn’t say what he and probably some others at the table were thinking: Speak for yourself, there, Dant. Jim had had two girlfriends during his last year at the academy, on two different sides of town, and he had always been interested in getting out into town.
Robbins reminded everyone that he was still focused on the emergency at hand-the death of Midshipman Fourth Class Dell. He emphasized the importance of information control through the Public Affairs office. Then he stood up, which was the signal that the morning conference was over. Everyone stood at their seats as the commandant left the room.
Jim hadn’t mentioned at the staff meeting that he was more than just a little familiar with the tunnels and the small band of “runners,” as they called themselves. After Jim had taken over as security officer, one of the little dears had shut the two main valves for the steam-heating line leading to Bancroft Hall. Jim had decided to take a personal interest. He’d obtained the underground as-built drawings from the Public Works Center, then made several daytime recons of the tunnel complex, compiling a detailed map of the entire underground system. After more than 150 years of operation, the tunnel system was much more extensive and elaborate than he had imagined, with some of the branches dating back to the Civil War.
He had discovered that there were no fewer than five routes out into the city of Annapolis, although three of these were somewhat dangerous as escape routes because of high-voltage cables and transformers. The other two, however, led to places where it would be easy for someone to get into town, especially late at night, without being seen, coming or going. He’d also discovered that there was at least one tagger loose down there, and he had taken some notes on the graffiti designs and signatures. Two months ago, he’d even sprayed over one of the more elaborate territorial markings with black paint, then laid down his own tag, a macabre cryptogram he’d bought from one of the local tattoo parlors, with the name Hall-Man-Chu embedded in it. Two weeks after that, he found that his tag had been defaced, the jaws of a silhouetted shark surrounding it. He’d taken it as a challenge.
After that, he had made some nocturnal excursions to see if he could catch the mysterious runner with the shark tag. Each time, he had notified his own police force and the Public Works duty officer that he was going to be going down into the system. Then the Academy’s police chief, Carlo Bustamente, mentioned in passing that the PWC people were listing his nocturnal inspections on their daily maintenance schedules. He changed his MO, telling only the chief when he was going to make a tunnel run of his own.
He hadn’t yet escalated his surveillance activities to go hunting, because this was, after all, just a game played by some mids who were defying Executive Department regulations. As security officer, he didn’t care if the mids wanted to live dangerously and risk a Class-A conduct offense known in Bancroft Hall as “going over the wall,” even if it was technically under the walls. He also wasn’t sure what he’d do if he actually caught up with one of the runners. He had the authority to put the miscreant on report, assuming it was a mid and not a townie, but he was more inclined simply to count coup and then make the guy knock it off. It was bound to be a firstie, because if a firstie caught a second classman down there, he’d be obliged to put him on report. Whoever it was, he wasn’t really damaging anything, and if it was just a game, well, hell, it was just a game. As CO of the Marine detachment, he could never have taken such an attitude, which was one of the reasons, he supposed, that he’d become a civilian. Besides Bosnia.
When he got to his desk, there was a message from Chief Bustamente. Subject: the Dell case. The tunnels forgotten, Jim called Carlo.
Bustamente was a retired Navy chief warrant officer who oversaw the Academy’s seventeen-man civilian police force. He’d done twenty-six years in the fleet, starting out as a master at arms, making chief, and then warrant. Now he was nearly sixty and an old hand in the federal law-enforcement business, having worked in naval base security offices all across the country. Carlo prided himself on knowing what was going on under the floorboards of any installation he’d been assigned to, and he had a large network of contacts in both federal and local civilian law enforcement.
“Hey, Cap,” he said when Jim called, in deference to both Jim’s now defunct status as a Marine Corps captain and the fact that Jim was his titular boss.
“Chief,” Jim replied, observing the protocol, “What’s up?”
“You heard any of the details on this flier we had?”
“Only that the powers that be haven’t decided whether he was a jumper or it was a DBM-death by misadventure.”
“Not misadventure, but maybe AD-venture, Cap,” Bustamente said, lowering his voice. “Did you know our young Captain Marvel was dressed out in lace panties?”
Whoa, Jim thought. That’s a detail that ought not to be loose. “Yes, but I’m surprised that’s out there,” he said.
“An FAK fact,” Carlo said. “And I hear through the grapevine that the ME’s got some physical indications that he may have had some help in his final moments.”
Jim twisted his chair around so that his voice wouldn’t carry out into the admin office. “Physical indications? As in?”
“Bruising on lower arms, indicating he may have been gripped, with his arms pinned. Like maybe he was thrown or pushed, instead of jumping. Probably some other stuff, but that’s all I have.”
Jim was stunned. None of this had come out at the morning conferences-just bland generalities about continuing investigations and heightened sensitivity to indications of suicide or serious depression. This sounded like homicide. If it was true. He said as much to Carlo.
“Yeah, well, my source in town says the ME’s report’s been snatched up by NCIS and everyone’s been told to clamp their yaps and move along smartly, which tells me the rumor’s got some legs. I can just imagine how this is gonna play over in the admin building.”
“Man. The incident came up at morning staff, of course, but only in terms of a media-relations problem. No hint that it might be more serious than suicide.”
“As if suicide wasn’t serious enough.”
Got that right, Jim thought. According to the JAG this morning, the boy’s parents were already asking some pointed questions. “You got any traplines into NCIS?” he asked.
“Well, you know me, Cap,” Carlo said. “Nothing I could admit to.”
Which meant no, he didn’t. “I hear you, Chief,” Jim said. “I’m just curious-I have no role in this mess, for which I’m increasingly grateful.”
“Yeah,” Carlo said with a chuckle. “Don’t you just love that exclusive jurisdiction rule, though? Oh, and did you hear about the vampire?”
Jim saw a joke coming. “Haven’t heard that one, Chief.”
“No, no, not a joke. One of my buds downtown said they had a complaint of some guy getting the shit kicked out of him by Count Dracula.”
“Ri-i-ght.”
“Seriously. Somebody called nine-one-one, cops came, found two guys passed out, with their pants down in a-what’d they call it-a compromising position. Third guy, on the other hand, had to be scraped up off the concrete.”
“Sounds more like a general-purpose mugging.”
“Yeah, well, the injured kid claimed they were following a couple of those Goth girls out of a bar. You know, that all in black, abraca-fucking-dabra, white face, green hair scene? Anyway, kid says the girls were hot to trot, despite the weirdness.”
“They always are.”
“Yeah, right. So our poor vic and his two asshole buddies get misled, probably not for the first time in their miserable lives, an’ follow their dicks right into a- ta da -dark alley. Where, naturally, things turn to shit.”
“What a surprise. And this is when Count Dracula shows up?”
“Ten feet tall, cape, face to stop a clock. The vic in the hospital apparently becomes one helluva witness, comes to this face: dead-white skin, red lips, red eyes like coals, fangs, the whole salami. Had a serious hiss in him, too, apparently. The two nuclear physics majors with him heard the big hiss, but as they’re turning around, some thing knocks them flat on their asses. Fearless leader says he tried to defend himself, but the docs said he most likely fainted out of fright and then got his ass stomped. No defensive injuries, other than he pissed himself. I don’t know if that works on vampires or not.”
“A vampire in Crabtown. Hey, I gotta know: Did old Drac do his signature deed?”
“Nope, no bites. Count Dracula apparently has his standards. But he did indulge in a pretty vicious beating. Guy’s seriously fucked up. Get this: The cops told this guy, he needs to check the mirror the next time the moon is full. See where he’s growin’ hair.”
“I love it. Poor bastard’s gonna wonder for a whole month. Guess a working vampire has to be careful these days, all this HIV going around.”
Bustamente laughed. “There you go. Safe-sex vampires. Maybe that’s why he beat the shit out of the guy. Frustrated. No blood and gore.”
Jim laughed and hung up.
And then he had a thought: as the Naval Academy’s security officer, should he not be telling his superiors that the word was leaking on a possible homicide? He hesitated. Was this his military mind-set talking? What would a civilian bureaucrat do in this case? A savvy civilian would probably keep his mouth shut and his head down in anticipation of a galactic shit storm, that’s what. On the other hand, the supe and the dant were probably operating under the mistaken impression that they had some maneuvering room and time, which, if the rumors were already flying, they probably did not have. He pushed the paperwork aside and picked up the phone.
Cmdr. T. Prentice Walsh, the elegant executive assistant, answered. “Rear Admiral McDonald’s office, this is Commander Walsh speaking, sir?”
“Commander, this is Jim Hall. Have some intel for you.”
“Ready to write,” Walsh said. The EA was very switched in to getting inside information.
Jim told him what he’d heard. Walsh whistled softly. “Damn,” he said. “Very well. Thank you.” Then he hung up.
Hey. Have you heard? The word’s out on campus. Not our campus, silly, the campus of King William’s School, founded a few weeks back, in 1696. Now called St. John’s. Not sure why old St. John won out over His Majesty, but, whatever. It seems the Annapolis cops have been on the campus, asking questions about the Goths. The Johnnies, being Johnnies, God love ’em, are telling the Filth absolutely nothing, other than there are hundreds and hundreds of Goths, and is there one in particular you might be looking for, Officers? Pretty good for a school of about four hundred lost intellectuals.
Seems like one of the town boys had to be hospitalized after a run-in with-are you ready? A vampire! Yes! A vampire. Right here in River City. The cops apparently talked to one of my tasty little moths, started questioning her about her vampire associations. She’s a devotee of Anne Rice, so she comes back with a laundry list of famous vampires, starts in on a regular lecture. Lestat, et al. Annapolis’s finest finally figure out they’re being diddled and give it up for Lent. But now, of course, the girls want to lay low for a while. Problem is, I don’t have awhile. I’m out of here in a few weeks with the rest of my very upstanding, honorable, ethical, and supremely righteous classmates. And I’m enjoying this shit, you know? It’s great practice for my upcoming career in the Mameluke Brigade.
So here’s the hot flash: I’m going solo, just like I told you before. Only this time, I’m going to lure one of the locals back into the tunnels. My tunnels. Assuming he’ll be brave enough.
One little problem, though: It seems as if somebody on the Dark Side has been poking his cop nose into my tunnels. Messing with my art. At first, I thought it was Public Works, you know, the diggers and fillers who chase down steam leaks and electrical grounds. But now I’m not so sure. I found a new cryptogram. Got the impression that, whoever this Communist is, he’s trying to tell me something. Like, Stay the fuck out of here.
As if.
Say, what do you hear about the Dell thing? I hear they’re questioning midshipmen. Anyone you know? They still think he jumped, don’t they? They might be wrong about that.
At 12:45, just as Jim was getting ready to go over to the Natatorium for a swimming workout, his boss, Commander Michaels, stopped him in the hallway. There had been a hurry-up department head meeting, at which it had been announced that the Dell incident might have been a homicide. He instructed Jim to beef up security on the gates to keep media types from sneaking in and interviewing mids. Town liberty for all midshipmen had been canceled under the pretext of the security alert, and the Public Affairs office had been told to apply the “full armadillo” posture to any questions about this development. The Academy chaplain had been ordered to Norfolk to talk to Dell’s parents.
Jim went back to his cube and called the chief to pass on the new marching orders. Then, once again, he tried to get out of the building to get his exercise in. This time, he ran into the commandant, who was walking back over to his offices in Bancroft Hall. Captain Robbins indicated he wanted Jim to walk with him.
“That department head meeting was the result of your warning,” Robbins said. “Good headwork. Now, I have an assignment for you.” He paused for a moment as a gaggle of midshipmen walked by, saluting by the dozen. “You were CO of the MarDet here? Before you got out and took this security job?”
“Yes, sir.”
Robbins nodded slowly as they resumed walking. “Why’d you get out, if I may ask?”
Jim knew he had to be careful with what he said. He didn’t know whether or not the commandant knew about what had happened in the Balkans that brought him to the Academy in the first place. “I figured out that I didn’t want a career in the Corps,” he said. “I decided to take some time out, to work out what I really wanted to do with my life. This job came open at the end of my tour as CO of the marine detachment, so I took it.”
“Hmm. Yes. Not exactly a young man’s job, is it?” They turned up Stribling Walk toward Bancroft Hall.
“It’s a job, sir. I give it good measure. But, no, I don’t look at it as a career. On the other hand, I may not be the career type.”
He thought he saw Robbins smile, which was unusual. “We tend to forget that, those of us immersed in the career Navy,” he said absently. “I seem to remember something about a problem in Bosnia?”
So much for that little secret, Jim thought. “I was involved in a friendly fire situation,” he said. “Some Brit artillery went blue on blue. I was the spotter.”
“Ah,” Robbins said. “Were you actually responsible for the error, or were you the designated goat?”
Jim was surprised. Robbins looked sideways at him. “Oh, I know something about how the Corps operates, Mr. Hall. Whenever there’s a screwup that embarrasses the Marine Corps, somebody has to take a fall. ‘Disciplinary cut,’ I think they call it. They pick somebody who was involved, not too senior, hopefully, and hammer him to the satisfaction of whichever general’s been embarrassed. Guilty or not.”
“It was the Brits who screwed up,” Jim said. “To their credit, they admitted it. The UN commander called it another way, so then the Corps was on the hook. Plus, I had expressed some reservations about what we were doing.”
“How convenient. You were a natural target. I understand. Well, here’s what I need: I want you to find out as much as you possibly can about the NCIS investigation, using whatever resources you can muster. Ditto for anything being worked in the county or state law-enforcement channels, such as the Anne Arundel medical examiner’s office, from whence I suspect the leak cometh.”
“I can tap the chief’s web for some of this,” Jim said. “Bustamente knows everybody.”
They had arrived at the Tecumseh monument. “Don’t care and don’t really want to know,” Robbins said, “if you catch my drift. Just feed me as much intel as you can. Directly to me. As you know, I can’t lean on NCIS-that Branner woman would squawk command interference. But we need to be in the loop, one way or another, Mr. Hall. This thing is going to get bloody. I’m sure of it.”
“It already has,” Jim said. “For Midshipman Dell.”
Robbins gave him a pained look but then nodded. “I don’t for one moment believe that this young man was killed,” he said. “A homicide here is just inconceivable. I think this was some kind of end-of-plebe-year stunt that went terribly wrong. But, be that as it may, please be discreet. No James Bond stuff. I don’t want anybody on the staff to know you’re doing this.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Jim said. He resisted the impulse to salute as the commandant turned away abruptly and headed into Tecumseh Court. Jim turned left and went down along the sidewalk flanking the first wing.
The commandant had been right on about what had happened to Jim’s career over there. His commander at the time, a major with very serious career aspirations, had sat him down and told him the bad news after the incident and the ensuing investigation. He was to be relieved of his duties and sent out of the theater. No further disciplinary measures. An assignment to a ceremonial post somewhere. When Jim had objected that he hadn’t done anything wrong, the major had just looked at him. You were involved. That means the Corps was involved. Henderson Hall needs somebody to take the fall. You’re young, with lots of time to go. I’m at the twelve-year point, with half a career invested. You’re the goat. Suck it up, and the Corps will take note of your sacrifice. That’s how it works. He’d ended up at the Academy one month later.
Twenty minutes later, he was banging through laps in a side lane of the training pool, called the Natatorium. The Nat was in MacDonough Hall. There was a second, Olympicsized pool in Lejeune Hall, with seating for one thousand spectators, but the old Natatorium was used mostly for swimming instructions and tests. A familiar drama was unfolding above the middle of the pool. A lone, miserable-looking midshipman sat on the steel grates of the infamous jump tower, a steel platform suspended twenty-five feet above the water, from which every midshipman who wanted to graduate had to jump. The purpose of the drill was to teach the mids what it might be like to abandon a sinking ship.
The exercise was simple, if sometimes daunting. The mids, fully clothed, had to climb a free-hanging steel ladder, ascending from the surface of the pool up to the platform, more than two stories above. They then had to walk to the end of the platform, assume the approved safety posture for the jump, and, on signal from the class supervisor, step off and drop into the pool, come back to the surface, demonstrate the strokes needed to sweep fuel oil out of the way, and then swim to the side of the pool.
Most mids did it without incident. Some were so afraid of doing it, they didn’t graduate. In every case, the reluctant dragons were ordered to climb to the platform-which in itself was scary, because the ladder slanted in at an overhang angle as soon as the mid climbed aboard-and stay there until they made the jump. A jump supervisor would remain on the side of the pool to encourage the mid to get it over with. There were mids who had spent the night on the tower. This one had apparently balked during a ten o’clock PE class, and so he had been on the tower for only a few hours, although he didn’t look like he was going anywhere anytime soon. As Jim remembered, the next step would be to send for his roommate, who would climb the tower and try to talk him into making the jump. And if that didn’t work, they’d detach the ladder.
After fifty laps, Jim still didn’t know exactly how he would approach the dant’s mission, but his leg muscles were telling him that it was time, innkeeper. He heaved himself out of the pool and grabbed his towel, just as a lone female swimmer did the same on the other side of the pool. Her distinctive swimsuit identified her as a member of the varsity swim team. He also took a moment to admire her very fine figure. That young lady was definitely built for speed, and she smiled through a hank of wet hair when she saw him looking. Then he recognized her: She was the midshipman the NCIS people had been interviewing in the Dell case. Owner of record of the infamous panties.
He grabbed his towel and walked over to where she was drying off. Behind them, the tower jump supervisor, a Marine captain with a shaved head, had begun yelling at the mid on the tower, exhorting him to stop wasting everybody’s m-f-ing time and do the goddamn thing. That he, the instructor, had already missed chow and wasn’t about to miss liberty, too.
“I’m Jim Hall, security officer here at the Academy,” Jim said.
“Midshipman First Class Markham, sir,” she replied promptly, continuing to towel off. Respectful, but cool. And really good-looking.
“Hey, I’m a civilian,” he said. “You don’t have to call me sir.”
She straightened up, draping the towel across the front of her suit as if realizing just how revealing the competition gear was. “I heard the word officer, ” she said. “Besides, you’re not a midshipman, you’re bigger than I am, and older. That’ll get you a sir every time.” Hint of a smile.
Older? Ouch. He was maybe six, seven years older than she was. “Think he’ll do it?” he asked, pointing with his chin at the gray-faced mid up on the tower. She turned to look. Strong profile. Her mother must be something, Jim thought.
“That’s Captain Mardle over there,” she said. “The instructor doing the yelling? We call him Captain Marble. If he starts to take his gym clothes off, that guy’d better jump. He doesn’t want to be there if Marble is forced to swim out there and climb the tower.”
Captain Marble, Jim thought, staring at the supervisor’s glistening scalp. It did look like a marble. An angry marble, now that he thought about it. Getting angrier, too.
“You were a Marine officer, weren’t you, sir?” she asked, looking around for her klacks.
“How could you possibly guess?” he said with a grin.
“Haircut, military bearing, the Academy ring. You obviously work out. The way you were looking at the guy on the tower. Like you’d enjoy going out there and lending a hand. Or a foot, maybe.” She was still smiling. She bent over, balancing on one foot with ease, to pull on her shower shoes. She’d been looking him over, too.
He laughed out loud. She was right: If it were him, he’d go out there, climb the tower, disconnect the ladder into the pool, and then jump off. “So,” he said. “How’s the Dell thing going? They know what happened yet?”
Her expression froze. Not quite alarm, he thought, but suddenly guarded. No longer even a hint of flirtation. He moved to reassure her. “I was there when we were lining up the first interviews,” he said. “Right after the incident. You were the first one up, as I remember.”
“Oh,” she said. “Yes.”
“My people and I caught the initial call,” he said, suddenly wanting to keep it going. “Tell the truth, I wish it had been somebody else.”
“You saw him?” she asked, her voice suddenly husky. “I heard it was-it was very bad.”
“ Bad doesn’t describe it,” he said. “Sorry I brought it up. I mean, if you knew him, that is.”
“Not really,” she said, turning away as if to mask her expression. Is she embarrassed? Jim wondered. “They just wanted to ask some questions. He was in our batt, but otherwise…” Her voice drifted off. She obviously didn’t want to talk about it. She began gathering her stuff to leave. He didn’t want her just to walk away, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say without making it really obvious he was either hitting on her or questioning her. She smiled over her shoulder and walked toward the locker rooms, tugging the bottom of her bathing suit. Jim watched her go. Definitely a female. He remembered to breathe.
Captain Marble dropped his clipboard onto the tile floor with a loud slap and bent down to begin taking his shoes off. The reluctant dragon on the tower saw that, got up, and trotted right off the tower as if nothing had ever happened. About a 1.0 for form, Jim thought, but at least the kid did the deed. Markham had been right. He headed for the guest locker room, trying to get back to the problem at hand but not doing all that well. There was no way in hell he was going to fool the flame-headed Special Agent No First Name Branner. Her sidekick, now, was a possibility.
Ev didn’t get back to his office until four o’clock. He groaned when his phone announced nine voice mails, but the one from Liz grabbed his immediate attention. He called her back, and she told him that she was meeting with Julie in an hour in her office.
“I can make that,” he said. There was a moment of silence.
“Ev,” Liz said, “I want to meet with her one-on-one this time. That rumor about a possible homicide is solidifying.”
Surprised, he didn’t know what to say. She apparently sensed his confusion. “I need to impress upon her that she needs my protection. Not the two of you. She’s about to be a commissioned officer. I need her to think in the first person singular.”
“O-kay,” he said. “I guess I was operating under the assumption that three minds were better than two.”
“Sometimes,” she said. “Although the usual expression is two minds; three tend to divide into sides. But I think Julie’s seeking your protection from this investigation as much as mine. I need to have her focused on what I tell her. You can’t protect her like I can.”
“True.”
“And I’m not talking about shutting you out, Ev. It’s more a case of calibrating my client. You’re paying the bills. I will absolutely keep you informed.”
It makes sense, he thought. “Okay,” he said. “You’re the lawyer. That’s what I’m paying for. But please: Let me help with any inside background. You know, the Academy context of
what you hear. I believe it will be the Academy that will be calling the shots here, not the NCIS.”
“Not if it’s a homicide investigation,” she said. “If this were simply some outrage to the Navy’s dignity at a football game, then, yes, our focus would be on what the Academy was going to do about it. But if it’s murder, law enforcement is going to drive it.”
“I can’t believe a midshipman has been murdered,” he said, meaning it.
“I can’t, either. That’s not what the Academy’s supposed to be all about, is it?”
He found himself shaking his head at his desk. “The world turned upside down,” he said, remembering what General Cornwallis had ordered his band to play at Yorktown. Then, not wanting to end their conversation on a negative note, he added, “I enjoyed dinner last night. Sorry for the emotional spaz.”
She didn’t say anything, and he wondered if he’d misspoken.
“You’re entitled,” she said finally.
“Yeah, but I’ve got to get over that. I hear it all the time.”
“Not from me.”
He thought about that. It was true: She hadn’t said anything like that. “Well, yes, and I appreciate that.” Then he surprised himself. “I’d like to see you again.” More silence. Was he getting this right? “I mean, if-”
“Sure,” she replied, interrupting him. “When?”
Relieved, he grinned, although she wasn’t cutting him any slack whatsoever. “How about tonight? You come out to my place this time. Call me when you leave and I’ll order up a pizza. This time, I promise: no waterworks.”
“Sounds fine. I like anything but anchovies. Hate anchovies.”
Ev loved anchovies, but he decided he could accommodate her. This one time. “Roger no anchovies.”
“And Ev? I’m really glad you asked me. See you in a little bit.”
He felt his face flush a little as he hung up. For some reason, he felt apprehensive. Why? Being too forward? No, that wasn’t it. Julie was the problem. He hoped Liz wouldn’t drop an “Oh, by the way, your father and I are going to have dinner tonight.”
On the other hand, Julie would be leaving town in a couple of weeks, and then it wouldn’t matter.
Right.
Good.
But he decided he was going to get anchovies on his half, just the same. Might as well establish some boundaries here.
Liz arrived at Ev’s house at 7:30. She’d brought along a bottle of Joseph Phelps Alexander Valley cabernet. He smiled when he saw it. “Fancy fixin’s, counselor. I usually have beer with pizza.”
“Force of habit,” she said. “Come to someone’s house for dinner, you bring some wine.”
He took her through to the kitchen and opened the wine, pouring them both a glass. “I know I’m supposed to let this breathe, but-cheers,” he said. The kitchen had a spacious breakfast nook that overlooked the backyard and Sayers Creek. They sat on cushioned stools at a semicircular counter facing the windows. Liz hadn’t changed from work clothes, and the way she was sitting made it difficult for him to keep his eyes above counter level.
“So, how’d it go with Julie?” he asked.
She reached for her purse and extracted a small boxy tape recorder. “Why don’t I let you listen to this?” she said. “Then you tell me what you think.”
“You tape your clients?” he asked, surprised.
“Always,” she replied, punching on the tape. “For mutual protection. This is interesting.”
Ev listened as Liz welcomed Julie to the office and got her some water. She made a comment about Julie looking in her service dress blues like something right out of a recruiting poster.
“They already did,” Julie said, and then there were chair noises. “For the catalog.”
“I can believe it,” Liz said. “And those stars on your uniform-those indicate academic achievement?”
“Yes, they do,” Julie said. “Although it took me two years to qualify for them. The really smart kids do it in one.”
“Your modesty is most becoming,” Liz said. “Now, do you remember what I told you in the car, that first night we met at your father’s house?”
“About always being straight with you?”
“Precisely.”
There was a pause. “What do you want to know, Ms. DeWinter?”
“Please, call me Liz. And I want you to refresh my memory on how well you knew Midshipman Dell. Take your time to think.”
“I don’t have to,” Julie said. “He was one of about twelve hundred entering plebes this past summer. He ended up being assigned in my battalion for the academic year, but not in my company.”
“That means you were in the same building?”
“In the same wing, yes. There are six battalions, five companies in each. There are eight wings to Bancroft Hall, so the battalions overlap, but, for the most part, company rooms are adjacent.”
“So you’d know everyone in your company pretty well, but not necessarily everyone in your battalion?”
“That’s correct. As a firstie, I know my classmates very well. The second class also-they’ve been right behind us for three years now. The youngsters are last year’s plebes, so they’re the new guys. This year’s crop of plebes are sort of a probationary class: Those who survive into youngster year achieve a class identity.”
“So all plebes look alike, then?”
There was a shuffling sound as Julie moved around in her chair. “Not entirely,” she said. “There are some plebes who stand out-at both ends of the spectrum. The ones who get with the program, who rise to the challenges of plebe year, become gung ho-they stand out. And the ones who are barely keeping their heads above water-they also stand out.”
“What happens to them?”
“It depends,” Julie said. “If they’re busting their asses to make it, the plebe year system will cut them some slack. Not a lot, but enough to keep them trying. Sort of a subliminal message to penetrate all the plebe year bullshit: You can do this, and we actually want you to succeed.”
“And if they’re not busting their asses?”
“If they’re lazy, dumb, or dishonest-you know, making it, but doing it by climbing over the backs of their plebe classmates-we’ll run them out.”
“‘Run them out’?”
“Make life so miserable, they ask to quit. Resign.”
“The Academy countenances that?”
“The Academy created the plebe year system. They want as many quality plebes as possible to succeed, to make it to their youngster year. But they expect some to fail.”
“How does that happen?”
Julie gave a short laugh. “A million ways. Look, what I’m telling you is how I see it, as a firstie. The official Academy line would probably be to deny everything I’m saying.”
“Okay, I accept that. Tell me how you’d do it.”
“It’s usually not a conscious decision or anything,” Julie said. “It’s not like we get together and declare someone a shitbird. It’s more like a collective conclusion among the upperclassmen. So-and-so’s a weakling and doesn’t belong here. And that doesn’t happen out of the blue, either. Usually, people will try to help a plebe who’s struggling. I’m talking about the ones who don’t struggle, or who whine and complain, or who try to skate.”
“And what happens to them?”
“Basically, a plebe’s day is supposed to be split between plebe year stuff and his academics, with a strong emphasis on allowing time to do the academics work. We reverse that. They get eternal come-arounds. They get sent on daily uniform races. They get ordered to roam the mess hall, where they report to a different table of strangers every meal, who harass the shit out of them. They get asked professional questions at meals and then get come-arounds when they show up without the answers. They get no free time, so pretty soon they’re on academic probation, too. They get fried-that means put on report-three, four times a week for small infractions: unshined shoes, failing room inspections, having nonreg gear, failure to get to places on time. Any number of things.”
“Sounds like piling on.”
“Yep. That’s what happens. They get loaded down until it’s hopeless, and then they resign. Keep in mind, we’re talking about the shitbirds here. Most plebes make it, one way or another.”
Ev could hear Liz get up and walk around her office. “What personal attributes would line a guy up for shitbird designation?”
Julie said, “I guess it’s like art: We know one when we see one.”
“But how do shitbirds get in? I’ve read that there are ten thousand applicants who qualify each year, but only twelve hundred or so get admitted.”
Julie cleared her throat. “Everyone here, except the prior enlisted, is on a political appointment. Congressmen and senators from the fifty states. The president, the vice president. All appointments are supposed to be competitive, but-”
“But what?”
“Well, some people are more special than others. Football players, for instance. I can’t prove this, but everybody knows that some of them don’t belong here, academically speaking. Still, they get preferential treatment-their own tables in the mess hall, special chow, extra academic attention, curved grading. Some minorities get special breaks, too. These hug-’em-and-and-love-’em programs come along, to get people in here from inner-city situations. And some people just manage to fool the system.”
“What category was Midshipman Dell?”
“Category?”
“I guess I’m asking if Dell was thought of as someone busting his ass or a shitbird.”
“Oh. I think Dell was on the edge,” Julie said slowly. “Maybe someone who’d been busting his ass but was now sinking into the failure mode. You know those National Geographic programs, where they show an old or sick animal being eased out of the herd? Like that. I wasn’t close to the Dell situation. The people responsible for Dell were the firsties and youngsters in his own company. You’d have to ask them.”
“And you didn’t really know him in any other context?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?” Julie said with an audible touch of heat. “I’ve told you, and I’ve told everyone else-”
Liz interrupted her. “I’m having a problem with the notion that he chose your room at random to go in and heist a pair of your underwear,” she said. “Unless he was a panty fetishist, in which case they should have found a stash somewhere.”
Julie was silent for a moment. Ev could just see her expression-he’d heard the anger in her voice. “I can’t explain that, and I don’t know what else they’ve found. I did not know him, and certainly not on an underwear basis! And I can’t help it if you don’t believe that.”
“It’s not just me, Julie,” Liz said. There were noises indicating she was sitting back down. “If this is indeed a homicide, the cops are going to pull that string until something emerges. Cops look for connections, in addition to motive, opportunity, and means.”
“Okay, so what’s my motive supposed to be? And for that matter, opportunity? I was asleep in my bed when he went out that window. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
Ev groaned out loud, but Liz waved it off, as if she’d been expecting his reaction. “I’m on your side. The point of this meeting was to introduce you to the tone and tenor of a homicide investigation. I don’t know what the cops have, but something’s gone off the tracks with the suicide or accident theory. There was something else going on here, and I need to make sure that you don’t know what it is.”
Once again, Ev could almost see his daughter, sitting there in a barely controlled rage. She did not reply.
“Julie, look at me,” Liz ordered. “Did part of the problem with Dell have anything to do with sexual orientation? Was Midshipman Dell gay?”
“I don’t know,” Julie said. Ev had heard that tone of voice, too, but not for several years. Joanne sometimes had to be restrained from slapping the shit out of her when she got that way.
“Let me try the question another way: Were there rumors that Dell was gay?”
“Possibly.” Ev perked up at that. This was new.
“Oh, c’mon,” Liz was saying. “Possibly? There either were or there weren’t.”
“I don’t really know. Sometimes upperclassmen call a plebe a faggot when they don’t mean it. Faggot. Maggot. Worm. Shitbird. Fuckup. You know, DI stuff.”
“DI?” Liz asked. Ev heard Julie sigh.
“Drill instructor. Look, you’re a civilian. I’m not sure you’re going to understand all this stuff.”
“Try me.”
“Okay,” Julie said. “The whole point of plebe year is to break down the individual civilian teenager and remold him into someone with a military mind-set. To drive the plebes together so they begin to think like a unit-roommates, a class within the company, then a class within the Brigade. To expose them to pressure, so they learn to think fast on their feet and to organize their hours to get it all done, their schoolwork, their plebe duties, their rooms, their uniforms, all of it.”
Liz said, “My first husband was a Marine pilot. He used to talk about Marine OCS. Same kind of thing, but with one big difference, I think: The Marines had professional drill instructors, whereas what I’m hearing now is that this program is run by the midshipmen themselves.”
“Not entirely,” Julie said. “The program is supervised by the company and battalion officers. There’s a whole executive department in Bancroft Hall.”
“But basically, at the sharp end, it’s kids running kids.”
“Well, that’s the system we were handed,” Julie said sweetly. “We didn’t invent it, and it’s been succeeding for a hundred and fifty years. I went through it, and earned the right to continue to a commission. This crop of plebes is going to go through it if they want to earn that same right.”
Liz changed tack. “Back to homosexuals, whom, I assume, occasionally slip through the admissions process. I thought the official Navy policy on gays was don’t ask, don’t tell. They keep their sexuality a secret, their hands to themselves, and no one is allowed to go after them.”
“That’s the policy.”
“And? You sound like it really isn’t the policy.”
Ev could hear Julie sit back in her chair and take a deep breath, as if forcing herself to relax. “The Academy isn’t the Navy, Ms. DeWinter,” she said finally. “Or so we’re often told by the commissioned officers. As in, Don’t confuse Bancroft Hall with the fleet.”
“What is it, then?”
“My father says that Bancroft Hall is like a big simulator. It looks like the Navy, but it isn’t. Same thing at West Point, too, from what I saw during our exchange weekend. Being a plebe in Bancroft Hall is like being in a pressure cooker. Officer Candidate School is, too, but that only lasts three months. Plebe year lasts one whole year.”
“So it’s a matter of scale?”
“This place takes four years to develop naval officers who can take the heat, who can stand up to steady pressure and not only perform but perform in a superior fashion. Ultimately, it becomes a matter of pride: Keep dumping stuff on my head-the academic load, the required athletics program, the physical tests, the whole plebe year, the constant inspections, the competition for class standing, responsibility for leading the lower classes-and I can not only hack it but do it well. Because I want to, and because I’m going to show them.”
“You’ve been to hack-it school, as my first ex used to say.”
“Precisely. It’s competitive across the board, from admission to commission, and we’re always being tested. Strong men and women, with strong character, visible moral courage, a clear sense of ethics. We consciously address issues of right and wrong. It’s a black-and-white world we live in, or at least that’s what the system tries to accomplish.”
“And you’re saying that gays can’t fit into that mold?”
“It’s not being gay that’s the problem, Ms. DeWinter,” Julie said softly. “It’s the system to cope with gays that doesn’t fit here. The policy you just mentioned. The don’t ask, don’t tell policy. It ducks the question. It’s basically an evasion. Evasion violates our principles.”
“Ah,” Liz said. “And so, if someone is suspected of really being gay, he or she could be in trouble.”
“Oh yes.”
“How do you personally feel about gay people?”
“Poor them,” Julie said.
Liz let out a long breath. “Let me try a hypothetical: Is it possible that Dell was suspected of being gay, and that someone or some group threw him out a window? Like some kind of antihomosexual vigilante group?”
“No,” Julie said emphatically. “No. Look, when the subject comes up, what you hear is that individuals mostly don’t care if someone is gay. What nobody wants to have is some queer hitting on you, whether you’re male or female. Plus, there’s the practical problem. We’re all headed for commissions. Picture a bunch of gung ho Marines taking orders from their second lieutenant if they think he’s a fairy. I don’t think so.”
“And Dell?”
“Dell was a little guy. Not short, but, like, not much heft to him. A diver, not a swimmer. From the few times I worked with him, he was too passive. Not assertive. Not effeminate, either, but maybe just scared. I could see why people might think he didn’t belong here.”
“But wouldn’t it take some balls to sneak into an upperclassman’s room and steal underwear?”
“Guys with balls don’t wear panties,” Julie snapped. “Besides, we don’t know that he did that, Ms. DeWinter. Hell, the laundry might have done it. Sent back something of mine in his laundry bag by mistake. I’ve gotten other women’s things back in my laundry. It happens. I told my father that I thought Brian was weak, not gay.”
“Brian?” Liz asked softly.
“His classmates called him Brian,” Julie said. “And best I know, that wasn’t the rap on Dell. And, no, there aren’t any Brigade vigilante groups. Against gays or anyone else.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“Because everyone’s too damned busy,” Julie said patiently. “It would have to be firsties who’d run something like that, and firsties have only one thing on their minds at this stage of the game.”
“Which is?”
“Getting the fuck out of here,” Julie said with a vehemence that surprised Ev. Liz apparently had had the same reaction, and Julie caught it. “Well, you know what they say, Ms. DeWinter. This is a four-hundred-thousand-dollar education, shoved up your ass a penny at a time.”
“Yes,” Liz said softly. “Your father mentioned that one to me.”
“My father?” Julie asked. “When did he tell you that?”
“At dinner last night,” Liz said. Ev held his breath when he heard that. He felt Liz looking at him.
“Oh,” Julie said.
“Your father is paying the bills here,” Liz said. “I promised to keep him in the loop as to what I was doing. But we did have a nice evening, nonetheless.”
Ev sensed what was coming next when all Julie said was “Oh” again.
“How do you feel about your father and I seeing each other, Julie?”
“Seeing each other?”
“Yes. Seeing each other. You know exactly what I mean. He’s very worried that you’ll be upset if he starts seeing someone.”
Holy shit, Ev thought, and finally looked over at Liz, aware that he was blushing. There was the hint of a smile on her face.
“Mom’s death hit us both pretty hard,” Julie was saying slowly. “But I’m out of here in a few weeks. I don’t want him living all alone in that big house, so I’ve got zero problems with him seeing you or anyone else. You’ve been married before, Ms. DeWinter?”
“Yes, twice,” Liz said. “And it’s Liz.”
“Then you must know what you’re doing,” Julie said. Ev heard an element of challenge in Julie’s voice.
“Meaning?” Liz replied evenly.
“Meaning he’s a bit fragile right now. Don’t you dare toy with him.”
It was Liz’s turn to say nothing. Ev tried to imagine the scene in the conference room, the two women glaring at each other. This was a side of Julie he’d not seen or heard before. Liz finally spoke.
“Not that it’s any of your business, Julie, but I do understand that your father’s been through a rough time. And I don’t trifle with men I like.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Ms. DeWinter,” Julie said. “Have I answered all your questions? I need to get back.”
There was a clicking noise as Liz leaned forward to hit stop and rewind. “I guess I’d never thought much past the smart uniforms, pretty dress parades, drums and bugles, and football game rallies in Tecumseh Court,” she said. “I didn’t realize that day-to-day life inside that big building is so intense. Or that the midshipmen themselves know what they are doing.”
“I think Julie’s a cut above in considering all that,” Ev said, still somewhat aghast. “But she’s right: Civilians have no idea. I’ve often thought about how life at the Academy begins a separation between the officers who come out of there and the American taxpayers, who pay the bill.”
“‘Civilians’? Aren’t you a civilian?”
“Nope. Never will be, either. Not in my mind. I’m an Academy grad who was also a Navy fighter pilot. Even after all these years in academia, I’m still not a civilian.”
“How interesting.”
“The place changes you. Julie’s right, in a way. If you didn’t go there, you probably can’t understand just how much it changes you. Or the intense pride one has in getting through it.”
She sipped some wine while gazing out over the creek, where twilight was softening the individual features of trees, docks, and houses. She was obviously going to skip right past that part of the discussion involving him. Ev saw her make a token effort to tug on her skirt, but that only made things more interesting. He found himself suddenly very aware of her, physically, and he hadn’t experienced that feeling in some time. He felt a sudden urge to pick her up. She was tiny, but oh, my. The silence lingered.
“You graduated when?” she asked finally.
“Class of ’73. Seems like a century ago.”
“I loved my time at college, law school less so. Would you describe your time at the Academy as being happy?”
“Happy? No. But the Academy’s not college. I majored in aeronautical engineering, so I felt as if I had a creditable degree, but the degree was almost a sidebar. Getting through the four years, getting commissioned, that was the accomplishment.”
“If Brian Dell had been gay, do you think that would be a reason for someone or some group to kill him?”
Ev shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t think so. If he was gay, and groped somebody, he’d get his clock cleaned and be separated. If they caught him doing homosexual acts, they’d separate him. We had two guys in my class who got caught playing drop the soap in the gym. Both gone the next day. One other guy said he was gay, but the word was he just wanted out without having to serve out his obligation in the fleet as a white-hat. But throwing a kid out the window for being gay? Nah. Is that the current theory?”
“I don’t know. I was just speculating. You know, the underwear thing.”
“But the homicide angle-you think that’s real?”
“My source does. I asked the NCIS people what motives there might be for murder in Bancroft Hall. He said the usual: money or love.”
“Not many people in Mother Bancroft have money,” Ev mused.
“Right. Which leaves love. An Academy romance gone way off the tracks.”
“One assumes boy-girl. I suppose in this modern age, it could have been boy-boy.”
They were interrupted by the doorbell. Ev left her in the kitchen to go get the pizza. When he came back, he found her looking at a collection of Markham family pictures on a shelf beneath the cookbooks. She was holding one picture in her hand, a group photo of Ev, Joanne, and Julie at about age thirteen, based on the awkward posture and the hint of the good looks to come. Ev, taller than both, was beaming with pride, his arm around both wife and daughter. Joanne was spectacular in this picture, a glowing brunette, wide-eyed, perfectly proportioned face, luxuriant figure, looking back at the camera with practiced ease, knowing that she was beautiful, and apparently comfortable with it. Liz put the picture back as he walked in, then cleared some mail off the counter to make room for the pizza.
“Arrgh,” she said when she saw the anchovies.
“I know,” he said, “But it’s half-and-half. I was going to abstain, but I happen to love the little stinkers.”
“Aptly put,” she said, wrinkling her nose. He laughed at her.
“I’m going to switch over to beer,” he said. “Your half okay?”
“It’s fine. I rarely eat pizza, so when I do, it’s always good. Although hell on the girlish figure.” He got out some plates and silverware, and she helped herself to a slice well away from the offending anchovies.
“Nothing wrong with the girlish figure from where I’m standing,” he said, cracking open a Coors.
“One of these days, I’m going to give up and just let myself…expand.”
Ev laughed as they moved back to the counter.
“Is there a chance Julie might know more about this Dell business than she’s telling either of us?” she asked.
Ev felt a protective impulse rise in his chest. Liz kept coming back to this. She saw his concern.
“You want to know why I keep asking,” she said. “I sense there’s something wrong over there in Bancroft Hall. This is the Naval Academy. Four thousand straight-arrow men and women, the best and the brightest, duty, honor, country, pick your slogan. And yet someone’s killed a plebe?”
He stared at her, then down at his pizza. He pushed it away and concentrated on his beer while trying to marshal his thoughts. “You think Julie’s lying to you?” he asked.
“Not exactly. I mean, I don’t think she had a hand in the boy’s death, of course. But I do think she’s not telling me everything. I’m just a civilian, you see. She’s one of…them.”
“Them. Right.” He nodded slowly, still not looking at her. He was aware of the lights reflecting in small dazzling patterns across the creek. The house was very still.
“I hired you to protect Julie,” he said slowly.
“That’s correct.” She seemed to be waiting for him to understand something important.
“But you can’t do that if she’s holding back on you, can you?”
“Bingo.”
“And you’d like me to do what, exactly?”
“I’d like you to reinforce the notion that if she does know something about this incident, she needs to tell me, and preferably before those G-persons do. Maybe point out that precisely because she’s not a civilian, the government’s investigators might not play nice.”
He steepled his hands in front of his face, then nodded again, making up his mind. He’d been on the verge of getting angry, but he then saw the logic in what she was saying. “You’ve got my attention, counselor,” he said. “I’ll try to think of something.”
“Liz,” she said. “So far, I can’t get either one of you to call me by my first name.”
He laughed. “Liz it is.”
They finished their pizza, and Ev made some coffee. They took it into the study.
She stirred her coffee for a moment. “Julie indicated that sometimes there’s a collective decision made that a plebe isn’t worth keeping. That he’s a ‘shitbird.’ What happens then?”
“Pretty much what she described. In my day, he’d become a target for the entire company’s upperclassmen. After a month or so of that, he’d crash and burn and then resign. Nowadays, though, my impression is that the system steps in. The company officers, the kid’s academic adviser, his squad leader, his mentoring youngsters, even his sponsor, maybe. That said, they do lose a couple hundred by attrition during plebe year.”
“I guess what I’m trying to understand is how much power do the upperclassmen have? Julie implied it was a lot. Even if the executive staff and the faculty get into it, can the upperclassmen run a guy out?”
Ev shrugged. “I’m twenty-eight years out-of-date. When I went through, the answer would have been yes. But he’d really have to be a shitbird. Someone who bilged his classmates, skirted the honor system, or was suspected of stealing-that kind of stuff. It wouldn’t happen just as a matter of unpopularity.”
“Sounds like extra work for the upperclassmen.”
“Actually, they’d set in motion the ultimate sanction: Get the guy’s own classmates to shun him. The upperclassmen can run a guy ragged, but if his classmates see that as unfair persecution, they’ll help him, carry him even. But if they dump him, he’s meat.”
“I’m wondering if that’s what happened to Dell. Julie called him ‘weak.’ Right from the first, during that plebe summer. She says he appeared to be struggling. If someone combined that opinion of him with an innuendo that he was also a homosexual, he could end up feeling really cornered.”
Ev nodded. “But that would imply suicide, not homicide.”
She shook her head. “I just don’t know. From an outsider’s perspective, all I see are lots of windows, but I can’t see anything inside. But the civilian system’s saying there might be a murderer in there.”
“I can’t see that,” Ev said, shaking his head. “When I was there, there were some plebes who got through plebe year who shouldn’t have. We all knew it. Guys with no moral fiber. Liars. Shirkers. Some ex-enlisted who knew how to get by. Guys who held the system in visible contempt. But we also knew that the system would eventually catch up with them: They’d cheat on an exam, or lie, or do something else that would get them sideways with the honor system. And that’s what happened.”
“You’re implying that most midshipmen believe in the ‘system,’ as you call it.”
“Basically, they do. We do. I think West Point says it better than we do: Duty, honor, country. Midshipmen are proud to be there. They want to serve their country. They hold the profession of arms to be an honorable endeavor. They’ll bitch and moan about the red-ass nature of daily life in Bancroft Hall, but down deep, they believe in it.”
“And yet we have a homicide investigation in progress. We think, anyway.”
He sipped his coffee and tried to think of a way to explain what it was like inside Bancroft Hall. The hivelike relationships among the upperclassmen, the plebes, the commissioned officers of the executive department, the companies themselves. A civilian just wasn’t going to understand all that. Liz was looking at her watch.
“Tomorrow’s a workday, unfortunately,” she said. “I’d better go.”
“Thanks for sharing that tape with me,” he said. “Or most of it, anyway.”
“She meant well, I think. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.”
He saw her out, then went back into the kitchen to clean up. The evening had not gone the way he’d envisioned it. He paused over the trash can, his hands full of pizza wrapping. Liz suspected that Julie was holding something back. Surely his daughter understood the danger of that.
He dropped the stuff into the trash can and put the silverware and coffee mugs into the dishwasher. What he hadn’t said to Liz was that there was another explanation possible in the Dell matter: that this wasn’t a case of a consensus decision on the part of the upperclassmen to drive out an unworthy plebe, but perhaps the work of a single upperclassman, some secret bastard who’d managed to fool the system long enough to rise to firstie status. As much as he would defend the Naval Academy, the midshipmen, and their sense of pride in being part of that duty, honor, country ethic, he knew as well as anyone who had actually been inside that the kids were very different today from when he’d gone through. He’d met enough of Julie’s classmates to know that they had experienced more of life than he ever had at that stage. If an evil kid, evil in the Columbine sense, was smart enough to get through the academic program without having to lie, cheat, or steal, he could play havoc in the military school culture of Mother Bancroft. The system was, after all, based on trust and expectations, and Ev had encountered a couple of midshipmen in the past few years who occasionally dropped the mask of military subservience long enough to reveal quite another attitude. What had happened to Brian Dell might have been the work of one of those gifted, smiling psychopaths who live in plain sight and fool all the people all the time until they do something truly unspeakable.
He shook his head to drive away that unsettling thought. With four thousand talented American kids in there, of course it was possible. It was just not likely.
You hope, he thought.
Jim Hall reached the grating entrance behind Mahan Hall at just after eleven o’clock Thursday night. He’d told only the chief that he’d be going into the tunnels tonight, not wanting to alert Public Works. Bustamente had asked Jim to page him once he came back out, but he had not seemed otherwise concerned.
The grating was at the right-rear edge of Mahan Hall, beneath an embankment of grass. During the winter, it exhaled a column of steamy air into the Yard, with the thickness of the column a function of how many steam leaks there were down there. Tonight, the column was visible but not very dense. The windows of the nearby academic buildings were illuminated, in contrast to those of Alumni Hall, which was pretty much at darkened-ship. The difference being in who was paying the lighting bills, Jim thought. The night was misty, with no wind and a promise of real fog later on. The light at the top of the chapel dome was already framed in a halo of moisture. The midshipmen were, theoretically anyway, bedded down in Bancroft Hall for the night.
He was dressed in a one-piece engineering-maintenance jumpsuit, with a black knit watch cap on his head, tropical-weight Marine combat boots, and black leather gloves. He hadn’t bothered bringing his cell phone or pager, because the reception in the tunnels was nonexistent. He did carry a Marine combat knife strapped to his right leg, two Maglite flashlights, one large, one small, on his belt, and a Glock strap-holstered in the small of his back. He wore a small lightweight backpack, in which he had a bottle of water, a battery-powered motion-detector box, a compact first-aid kit, and one can of black spray paint.
He lifted the grating that covered the slanting steel ladder, slipped underneath, and then let it back down. He descended the ladder into a concrete pit that ended in a steel door. He had the series key to this and the other Yard entrance doors, courtesy of the chief. For fire-fighting purposes, one key opened all the grating access doors. It also meant that anyone who could get a copy of this key would have free run of the tunnel system, although Jim knew that some of the main communications centers had additional locks. He suspected that there might be other access points inside Bancroft Hall, but he had not found them yet.
He closed the door behind him and looked around. He was standing in a small vestibule facing the main passageway in a T junction. He looked both ways down the tunnels. There were sixty-watt bulbs encased in steam-tight globes every twenty feet, and their yellow light seemed to accentuate the subterranean atmosphere. The only bare concrete visible was on the floor, as the sides and the overhead were covered by cable bundles, various-sized conduits, water pipes, and thickly lagged steam pipes. There was a hum of electricity in the air, audible against a background of hissing steam and the occasional clank of thermal expansion in the pipes. The air was humid and smelled of ozone and old pipe lagging. The pipes were marked at intervals with their contents and pressures. A ribbon of corrugated steel deck plates ran down the center of the five-foot-wide floor, under which ran the main sewage-pumping system.
He consulted his map and turned right, going fifty feet or so to the first dogleg turn to the left, toward the town of Annapolis. The walls being sufficiently covered by the utility lines, there was no room for any graffiti, but he checked anyway, probing the overhead and electrical panels with his Maglite for any signs of spray paint. The tunnel along this branch was one of the modern ones. It was eight feet high, but all the cables and pipes slung along the ceiling made it feel smaller than it was. Behind him, the main tunnel stretched back toward Bancroft Hall, where it branched out into several different loops and legs to the academic buildings nearer the river.
He stopped at the dogleg and listened. He had been careful to walk on the concrete and not the deck plates, but the only sounds came from the steam lines. He stepped around the corner and came to a major telephone vault, a concrete room that branched off the main tunnel and held a bank of signal-relay cabinets, as well as power amplifiers and hundreds of junction switchboards. Its steel door was framed by two large fire extinguishers. The regular keys to the vault were held by the fire department and the telephone company’s contractor, with a firefighters’ master override box superimposed on the regular locks. Jim did not have the keys to the vaults with him tonight, although he had been into every one of them in the past. Any midshipmen who came down here probably wouldn’t want to get into them. They would have other things on their minds.
His objective tonight was to check out the tunnel leading to a steam and electrical junction chamber beneath the St. John’s College campus. It was reached by taking this tunnel to the area underneath the senior captains’ quarters surrounding the Worden Field Parade ground, then getting through a security door into a branch tunnel that led out under King George Street, where the main telephone trunk lines and two six-hundred-volt power lines entered the Academy grounds from the city’s utility vaults. A runner would have to get through the Academy’s security door, then turn right into the municipal tunnel and go down about a block, where a similar city security door opened into a branch leading up to the college campus. From there, it was a quick but dangerous climb to the grating access point behind Pinkney Hall on the St. John’s campus. Two dangerous six-hundred-volt power lines were lurking in elderly wire conduit cages in a tunnel that was so narrow that any good-sized runner would have to touch the cages to get through. The high-voltage lines were insulated, of course, but they were also old, prompting the power company to spray-paint DANGER -600 VOLTS on signs every six feet to warn its own workers. The final branch line onto the St. John’s campus was also unlighted, just to add to the excitement.
Jim tested the doors of the telephone vault before going on around the dogleg and heading up the sloping tunnel toward the parade ground. He crossed two more tunnels, one running under the Academy’s Decatur Road, and a second under the portion of Hanover Street that paralleled the Academy’s wall. At the top of the Hanover Street tunnel, just in front of the fire door to the city tunnel, he found the fresh tag. It was the Shark again. An exaggerated drawing showing huge, distorted teeth, one baleful eye, a dorsal fin, and the signature SR incorporated into the tail fin. Lightning bolts depicted the shark’s wake, and a wide-eyed stick figure, arms and legs in an odd alignment, was directly in front of the gaping jaws. Jim sniffed the paint to see how fresh it was, but he couldn’t tell anything. It had definitely not been here before.
Habitual graffiti artists, considered vandals by the weary municipal authorities who had to clean up after them, painted their designs in search of fame among others of the graffiti subculture. Gang graffiti marked gang territory, but this looked more like hip-hop work, the dramatic design crying out for recognition. Jim had to admit the guy was pretty good: The lines between colors were clearly delineated, with no dripping or smeared paint. The design was in proportion and there was even some perspective between the huge shark and the soon-to-be victim. Hip-hop designs normally displayed a three-letter signature, which was often code for the tag team’s theme. This one only had two, SR, which probably stood for something really original, such as Shark Rules. But as he studied the design, he noticed two more letters, artfully embedded into the arrangement of the stick figure’s arms and legs: WD. That was unusual, and he had no idea what WD stood for. The tag was painted on the only blank section of wall in the tunnel that was close to the entrance to the city’s tunnels. He’d seen other graffiti, but they looked pretty old. This was fresh. And maybe it was territorial. But was it a midshipman or a townie?
He fished the can of black spray paint out and went to work. He painted a large circle around the entire shark design, then drew a diagonal black line through it. A no-shark zone here. Then he drew in a crude fishhook that impaled the body of the shark at the midpoint, and tied that to a line leading to his own signature, an elaborate HMC. He’d spelled it out the last time, so this guy ought to know who was messing with him. He stood back to admire his handiwork. Two drip lines appeared to spoil his work. Not up to the unknown artist’s ability, but the message was pretty clear. He restowed the paint can and then let himself through the metal fire door.
The city tunnel was not modern, as befitted a Colonial town old enough to have been the infant nation’s capital city. The walls and arched ceiling were lined with oversized brick, and some of it didn’t look all that substantial. With close to four hundred years of history, the Annapolis utility tunnels were a hodgepodge of sewer, water, and gas lines that bent down from the statehouse hill. Jim had not been into them except to locate the two most evident rising points for runners from the Academy. At least the Academy tunnels were reasonably dry; these were not, and he was careful where he put his feet. There was a distinct odor of sewage, and when he stopped to listen, he could actually hear the trickle of falling water somewhere, accompanied by the scrabble of little clawed feet in the darkness. He made his way carefully, trying to avoid contact with the badly rusted high-voltage cable cages on either side. He had to use his big flashlight, as there were overhead lights only at intersections.
When he got to the grating access under the St. John’s College campus, he found that the lock on the access door had been rendered useless by a wad of putty in the bolt receiver slot. Technically, he had no right to be here, as this was the city’s jurisdiction. But if this was a midshipman’s doing, he had every right to interfere. He pushed through the door to examine the grating pit, which was very much like the one back behind Mahan Hall. He tested the grating and found a padlock. He twisted the hasp and discovered that it, too, had been jammed open with what looked like some more putty. He then went back behind the access door and removed the wad of goop, pocketing it, while allowing the door to lock behind him. If whoever had taped it open had a master key and was out in town, he would have no problem getting back into the tunnels. If he did not, and he was a mid, he was now in for an interesting evening. There was every possibility that the lock had been gummed open years ago, depending on how often the mysterious runners were operating and how frequently the city crews came through.
He retraced his steps into the Hanover Street tunnel and then back into the Academy precincts. He closed the fire door between the town and government tunnel, making no attempt to be quiet now, as there was no one down here. Then the overhead lights went out.
He immediately dropped down on one knee to reduce his silhouette against the lights, however dim, that were still on in the city tunnel behind him. He had looked down the tunnel all the way through the junction with the Decatur Road leg, and it had been empty. So whoever had just switched off the lights had done it when he’d heard the city tunnel’s door clanging shut. He scuttled forward, staying low, until he came to a small alcove on the right side, which led to an electrical junction panel. The alcove was set back into the tunnel wall about three feet, offering enough room for him to squeeze his tall frame under the panel. He wanted to get his body out of the line of sight of anyone looking around the corner, which was about a hundred feet down the tunnel. He felt the comforting lump of the Glock pressing into the small of his back, but then he snorted softly. If this was a midshipman, he wasn’t likely to be packing. Remember, this tunnel shit’s a game, he told himself. But what if it isn’t? his edgy mind asked.
He waited until his legs began to cramp, but there were no identifiable sounds coming from the tunnel system. Just the occasional clinking of the steam pipes, and the periodic rush of water in the lines beneath the steel deck plates. A large vehicle rumbled overhead out on the city side, reminding him that he was most definitely underground. And not alone. He tried to remember where the lighting switch box was for this branch of the tunnel, but he didn’t know the layout that well. It had never occurred to him that he might have to operate the lighting system. He decided to remain where he was. Whoever had heard him close that door would have a decision to make. He could keep coming, on the assumption that the door closer had gone out into town, or he’d go back to Bancroft Hall if he suspected someone was waiting for him. He adjusted his legs to a more comfortable position and waited. After twenty minutes, he had about decided to get up and head down the tunnel with flashlight in hand, when he saw a red laser beam probing the tunnel in front of his face.
He froze and blinked his eyes several times. The beam was intermittent but unmistakable. Then he realized that the beam was only visible because of the light mist in the tunnel atmosphere. Otherwise, he would never have seen it.
Them, not it. There were two beams, flashing red lines like he’d once seen at a rock concert. Then suddenly, the beams disappeared. And then they came back, still probing, hitting the top, bottom, and sides of the tunnel, refracting occasionally off the edges of cable brackets or the bright, shiny surfaces of the cable-identifier tags. His own face was only inches from the edge of the alcove, and he could almost feel the cool lances of light when they flashed along his side of the tunnel. He didn’t dare look around the corner without knowing the type and power of the laser. Some of those things could blind you with a direct hit in the eye. And yet, whoever was out there had to be visible now, with at least his head and one hand sticking out into the tunnel from the dogleg turn down the slope. He longed to snatch out the Glock and pop a round down the tunnel. See how long the laser stayed on. But this was almost certainly a mid, not a serious bad guy. Some upperclassman who’d lifted a couple laser pointers from the lecture hall, or built them as a project in the physics lab. And as long as he did not move, the mid would have to come up the tunnel to find out if he was alone.
The beams disappeared again, and Jim felt his breathing relax. It’s just a harmless, pretty light, he told himself, but it had been uncomfortable to have those ruby red beams probing the misty darkness in the tunnel. Especially since one other possible explanation was that they had come from the laser pointer on a handgun. But a mid with a gun? No way. Get a grip, James. Mids run the tunnel in search of after-hours booze and late-night women. Just like you used to do. The lasers are just toys-some guy playing at Star Wars.
No, he decided. Stay put, see if he comes up the tunnel, and then scare the living shit out of him. He settled back against the wall and waited, focusing his brain to listen for any sounds of movement down the tunnel, and trying not to dwell on the other possibility, that this wasn’t a midshipman.
What he finally heard was the sound of steam. Just a light hiss at first, then a steadier pressure, sounding like a distant jet passing at altitude. Now what the hell? he thought. The noise didn’t increase, but it didn’t decrease, either. He’s cracked open a drain valve on one of the steam lines. He could picture the valve arrangement: The decals on the pipes indicated a hundred psi in the line. There were drain lines under every valve and at major junctions in the pipes to allow for condensed water to be removed from the lines after any service evolution. Two valves on each drain line: one isolation, one for operation. The big cutoff valves had been chained and locked in their open position, but the drain valves were not locked.
Okay, he’s cracked open a steam valve. To do what? Mask his own sound? Create a fog bank in the tunnel? Based on the sound, there wasn’t enough steam escaping to fill the tunnel, or at least not for a long time. Besides, the tunnel walls were cold concrete; any steam might create a mist, but then it would condense on the walls. So he was masking sound.
His own sound.
Which meant he was coming up the tunnel.
Jim lifted the big Maglite off of his belt and tried to position himself so he could lunge out of the alcove. He turned his body in tiny, silent increments to face down the tunnel, flexed his cramped muscles as he began deep breathing, trying to keep as still as possible.
He’d been wrong about the mist effect: The atmosphere in the tunnel was solidifying before his eyes. He blinked to make sure, because the only light was coming from a single bulb thirty feet back up the tunnel. The mist stank of old iron and wet concrete. It was accumulating on the walls and even on the steel cabinet under which he was hiding. He felt a drip of condensation tap the back of his neck, and then a second one.
He put his finger on the Maglite button. His plan was to blind the guy with the powerful flashlight from his crouched position, then to stand up and confront him. The mist swirled visibly now in the murk of the tunnel. Something coming? Had to be. He got ready to snap on the light. The light from up the tunnel was diminishing rapidly, becoming a yellow glow that seemed to suffuse the mist in every direction.
He felt rather than saw a presence, a gathering mass in the mist. Then it disappeared. He almost moved but then froze as he felt it again. There was something wrong: It wasn’t down the tunnel; it was behind his left shoulder. The guy hadn’t been coming up the tunnel, the guy had been behind him, in the city tunnel! Forcing his head to turn as slowly as possible, he saw a definite darkness in the fog, a solidification, shapeless but clearly there. In an instant, he turned the flashlight, pointed it up, and snapped it on. To his shock, he had illuminated a horror mask: a painted face, dead white, with glaring red-rimmed eyes, carmine lips, and huge teeth exposed in a terrible rictus. The face had no edges, but it seemed to disappear into a black-on-black penumbra. He was absolutely paralyzed for half a second by the sight, but just as his brain came back on line, he was blinded by a blast of something sticky spraying into his face, his eyes. He dropped the Maglite to shield his eyes, but the stuff was all over his face and then his hands. He lurched out from under the cabinet and tried to stand up, but something swept his feet out from under him and he fell heavily onto the deck plates, the impact knocking the breath out of him. He heard a horrible fun-house laugh, and then he felt the black mass stepping over him to disappear down the tunnel toward the Academy.
He wiped at his eyes, then stopped when he realized he was making it worse. Suddenly, he recognized the strong smell: paint fumes. The bastard had hit him with a can of spray paint. Wiping his hands clean on his coveralls, he extracted the plastic bottle of water from his backpack, struggled to rip off the top, and then squeezed water into his eyes until the stinging stopped and he could see. After a fashion, that is, for the tunnel was still full of condensing steam, and the lights were still out. He got up and stumbled down the tunnel.
Half an hour later, he emerged from the grating behind Mahan Hall. He hoped he wouldn’t encounter a passing police patrol, because he suspected his face would be really something to see. As he secured the grating, he remembered something the chief had mentioned that morning-that bit about the “vampire” thrashing those town boys. Whoever this guy was who’d attacked him, he’d been decked out like Bela Lugosi on a midnight ride. He had to admit that, for a moment there, this guy had managed to scare the shit out of him. And since it had sounded like he’d taken off into the Academy precincts, he was probably a midshipman.
He paged the chief to let him know he was out of the tunnels. He didn’t really expect Bustamente to call him back, but when he got back to his pickup truck, he found a message waiting for him on his government cell phone: CALL THE CHIEF, it read.
“Didn’t need you to call back,” he said when the chief picked up. “Just wanted to let you know I was out of the tunnels.”
“It go okay? No bad guys?”
“Not exactly,” Jim said, and told him what had happened. The chief whistled in surprise.
“I wonder if that’s the same guy who trashed those people over in town. That one guy’s still in the hospital.”
“He came up from behind me when I was coming back; I was looking down the tunnel, not behind me. He looked like every vampire I’ve ever seen in the movies, and I have to tell you, that shit stopped me for a second.”
“I haven’t seen any of those since I quit drinking,” Bustamente said.
“Since when did you quit drinking?”
“I mean drinking. Look, I’ll talk to Allan Wells, chief of D’s in town. Tell him what happened. Maybe we can catch this sick fuck.”
“Sick fuck is right. I’m having trouble seeing a mid do this. Dress up, scare people, maybe. But assault and battery on civilians-that’s different.”
“Why don’t you let me handle the reporting side?” Bustamente said. “I’m thinking in particular of Public Works. Those guys who work underground all the time aren’t gonna like this vampire shit.”
“Oh, hell, Chief, it’s some guy playing dress-up.”
“Yeah, but you see what I’m sayin’ here. Those guys who work underground, they tend to be superstitious. We need to be careful. Yard cops start talking vampire shit, ain’t nobody gonna go down there. The Johns’re gonna back up in Mother Bancroft till the end of time, we’re not careful here.”
Jim, grinning in the dark, rolled his eyes. Big mistake: The residual paint came after him in stinging waves. “I need to get this paint out of my face. I’ll stop over at your office in the morning. Oh, hey, I need to talk to you about this jumper case, too.”
“I’ve heard from a second source that this may not be a jumper case.”
“Yeah, that’s what I need to talk to you about.”