P Deutermann - Darkside

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.