Darkside

12

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

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

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

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

“Want me there?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How big are the exhaust ducts?”

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

“Any other ways out?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m on my cell,” he warned.

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

Julie Markham, he thought. “Go ahead.”

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

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

“My subject.”

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

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

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

“So they can if they want to?”

“Affirmative.”

“Any progress on the underlying issue?”

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

“Shoot.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, sir, essentially that’s it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But-but-” Rogers spluttered.

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

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

“And the Oscar goes to-” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She stopped and turned to face him. “I think they just went through the motions. Of course I was grandstanding in there, but that doesn’t mean I’m not pissed. Hays very clearly implied to us that someone had something on Julie Markham. Now suddenly we get stonewalled? Bullshit.”

“He may have been under orders, based on the way Captain Rogers was acting. This may be the shutdown we’ve been anticipating.”

They reached Branner’s car, which was parked illegally in one of the chapel spaces. A Yard cop car was pulling up behind it, but Jim waved him off.

“I’m going back to the office,” she said. “I may have to go up to headquarters if I keep getting voice mail every time I call up there.”

“You being shut out, too?”

She thought about that. “Maybe.”

“Remember that meeting this morning. They might be squeezing all the local players out of the loop. Oh, and I heard from Markham’s lawyer this morning.” He told her what Liz had said.

“Great minds think alike, don’t they?” she said. “You have my cell number?”

“Yep, got it,” he said, looking at his watch. “Have to remember when it’s low tide, too.”

She gave him a blank look, but he just waved and continued down the sidewalk toward the administration building.

Ev called Julie on her cell phone right after lunch but got her voice mail. He asked her to call him at the end of classes that afternoon. He had done exactly what Liz had suggested yesterday afternoon when he got home. He’d taken the scull and gone out for almost two hours, until he was so tired that he wasn’t sure he was going to make it back to the creek. By the time he got cleaned up and had some dinner, he felt sufficiently drained not even to want to go out of the house. He had called Liz at home and left her a message that he was just beat and going to bed early. He’d wondered for a whole three minutes if she’d be annoyed. Then he fell fast asleep and he’d almost overslept this morning.

Ahead was an afternoon seminar and then a faculty advisory board meeting. He was really anxious to hear from Julie. There were too many people moving around in her backfield: the NCIS, the Executive Department, that security officer. He wanted to warn Julie to be particularly careful, and to start communicating with Liz DeWinter. He absolutely hated not knowing what the hell was happening behind the scenes. The class bells began to ring. He groaned out loud, suddenly sick of academia.

As it turned out, it was Midshipman Hays who found Jim. Two hours later, as Jim was jogging along Dewey Field, Hays overtook him along the seawall. Jim became aware of the big shadow thumping along just behind him and turned to see who was there.

“Mr. Hall,” Hays said between breaths.

“Mr. Hays,” Jim replied. “This a coincidence?”

“Absolutely, sir,” Hays said, looking over his shoulder. “But maybe when we get around to the far end, we could go across the footbridge, maybe take a walk in the cemetery?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jim said, and turned it up a little. Hays fell back and kept pace, about twenty feet behind him as they jogged down to Rickover Hall and then across the arched wooden bridge that crossed Dorsey Creek and took them to the athletic fields on Hospital Point. From there, they slowed to a cooldown walk and went up the hill and into the trees of the Academy cemetery. Once they were entirely out of sight of the Yard proper, Jim plopped down on an iron bench next to a massive funerary monument and toweled his face. Hays did a 360 visual check and then sat down beside him.

“Some shit happened a few nights ago,” he said. “Let me tell you what it was, and then I’ll tell you who it is you’re probably looking for.”

Jim said nothing. Hays looked around again before continuing. “The deputy dant has put a lid on the whole Dell thing. The Honor Committee was told to shove off and shut up about what you and Agent Branner brought in.”

“Any explanations?”

“No, sir,” Hays said. “He told us to back out and graduate. Seemed like a pretty clear message to me.”

“Okay, that’s useful.”

“That’s part of it,” Hays said. “A couple of nights ago, I went back to my room from a study hall session down in Mitscher Hall. Actually, I’d been meeting with this youngster who’s doing a term paper for me.”

Jim nodded. The same thing had gone on when he was there: Graduating firsties, who had their hands full with finals, would pay a third-class mid to put together their senior year research paper. The firsties had to do the research and the writing, but the youngster would actually produce the formal paper.

“So. I got back to my room; my roomie’s not there. I get my uniform off, get into a B-robe, go to sit down at my desk, and I get bit.”

“Bit by what?”

“By a hundred and ten volts AC. It wasn’t a bad bite, because I had my rubber klacks on. But then I finally figured out that my whole desk was at line potential. The power had to be coming from my desktop PC-that was the only AC equipment on the desk.”

A Yard cop car nosed along the narrow lanes of the cemetery. The cop waved at Jim, who waved back. Hays looked nervous. “Somebody had rigged this?” Jim asked.

“Affirmative. I unplugged the desktop, took a look. There was the tiniest little copper wire you ever saw, coming from the hot side of the monitor’s power supply, through a hole in the case. It was married to the steel frame of the desktop with a drop of solder. Best yet, there was water on the deck on my side of the desks.”

“Whoa. For a perfect ground.”

“Damn straight. There were even one-inch rubber pads under the desk feet, which meant nothing happened until I touched the desk and the wet floor. One ten, straight in. And I’m not talking microvolts, either. Line voltage, line current. Just my side of the two desks. If I’d been sitting down, man, I’d have been welded to it.”

“Somebody wanted you dead.”

“Yes, sir. I think somebody did. And it wasn’t my roomie. Now, let me tell you the rest of it.”

“Wait a minute. Did Captain Rogers order you not to talk to me or Branner?”

“No, sir. Just said for us to ‘back out.’ We, the Brigade Honor Committee, are officially backed out. This is me talking here.”

“Okay. The rest of it.”

Hays hesitated.

“What?” Jim asked.

“I can’t prove any of this,” he said. “That bothers me.”

“Does Julie Markham going to the electric chair bother you?”

“What?”

“That’s ‘What, sir?’ Mr. Hays. See, the Dark Side here may shut down Branner’s investigation, but they’ll never shut down Branner. Or me, for that matter. And if what happened to Dell was homicide, Markham’s the best suspect NCIS has. Hell, she’s the only suspect NCIS has.”

Hays took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked around the cemetery grounds again, but everyone around them was long dead.

“There’s this guy,” Hays said. “One of our classmates. He’s also on the swim team. Calls himself ‘the Shark.’ Kind of a weird dude.”

The Shark? The name resonated. The Shark. Holy shit, as in that tunnel tag? “This shark dude have a human name?”

“Midshipman First Class Dyle Jones Booth. The middle name’s some kind of joke with him.”

“Describe him.”

“Big guy, freestyle swimmer. Black hair, dark, almost black eyes. Swims like a damned torpedo. Zero body friction. Totally hairless. Likes to look at you underwater as he’s passing you. Has one of those no-blink looks, man. Like I said, he’s out there, really weird.”

“This is a Naval Academy midshipman we’re talking about? A firstie?”

“Yes, sir. He was one of those special entries out of that diversity program four years back. No known parents-that’s the Jones joke, and he’s the first to tell you that. But this guy’s smart as a whip on the engineering side. Heavy into computer geekery, too. But no real friends. Hasn’t had a roommate for three years. Nobody’d stay with him. Total loner. In the Brigade and on the swim team.”

“I was on the swim team,” Jim said. “We were first and foremost a team. There were no lone rangers.”

“This guy is. But he’s unbeatable when he turns it on. Problem is, you never know when he’s going to turn it on. Once he wins, he sits on the bench by himself. No high fives or anything. Goes off into some Zen Zone. He’s super-fit. You wouldn’t want to mess with him.”

“And the Dark Side is cool with this behavior?”

“The dant’s always lecturing us about results. Booth gets results. N-star for three years at the varsity level. Academic stars on his shirt, too.”

“And what’s this got to do with Dell?”

“Dell was a plebe in Booth’s batt. The plebes are scared shitless of this guy. He doesn’t run ’em so much as terrorize them. When his company O finally got on his case about it, Booth went all extreme on him. Stopped even talking to plebes. But he still scared them. He’s a big guy and he’s got that look to him. Goes down the passageway, sees a plebe, slows down, gives him the voodoo eye, plebe starts squeaking his chow call.”

“Why’s he still here? Why didn’t the aptitude board throw him out for unsuitability a long time ago?”

“Sir?” Hays said. “You’re talking way above my pay grade, okay? Guy’s got a three-six cumulative QPR. He’s going Marine option. Gives really good gung ho. He sharpens his Marine dress sword, okay? Made a plebe shove out one time over the sword, then cut a piece of paper in midair with the thing in front of the plebe. Our house Marines eat that shit right up.”

It sounded to Jim like some of the Marines in Bancroft Hall needed adult supervision. “What are you going to do when you get out of here?” Jim asked.

“Surface line. Didn’t have the grades for aviation or subs. Only way I got in was with the swimming, sprint ball.”

Jim nodded. “Okay,” he said. “What’s the connection to Markham? And what’s Markham got to do with what happened to Brian Dell?”

Hays looked down at the ground for a long moment before answering. “Julie and I were close for three semesters. Then it went sour. Julie took a walk on the wild side. Down at UVA at an away meet. Once that she admits to.”

“With Booth.”

“Yes, sir. With Dyle Booth.”

“That why you two broke up?”

“Yes and no. I wanted to maintain our relationship after graduation. Julie didn’t. I made a jerk of myself about it. Finally, she drops this little bomb on me. I was fucking floored. I think that was her objective.”

“Julie Markham sounds like a tough young lady to me,” Jim said.

Hays shook his head again. “I was in love with her. You’ve seen her. But after her mother died, she changed. I thought I could go with it. Didn’t work.”

“Other than having something to throw cold water on your romance, what’s this UVA episode got to do with anything?”

“She said she told Dyle that it was all a big mistake. Dyle didn’t like that. Dyle doesn’t handle no very well.”

There were other runners coming across the bridge now, but they seemed to be staying down on the athletic field.

“And?” Jim prompted.

“Julie had been mentoring Brian Dell. He wasn’t her plebe or anything, but she felt sorry for the little guy.”

“Whoa. That’s not what she told us. She said she’d known him and a thousand of his closest friends during plebe summer detail, and then seen him around the halls of poison ivy. But otherwise, no big deal.”

“Not true,” Hays said. “She was helping him. His own youngster had resigned and Dell had lousy grease. The aptitude board was looking at him. You didn’t know that?”

Jim thought for a moment. He had not. And Branner wouldn’t have known enough to check with the aptitude board. They had just taken Julie’s word for it. Shit.

“You saying what I think you’re saying? That this guy Booth may have done something to Dell to get back at Markham?”

“Sir,” Hays said, eyeing Jim warily, “all I can say for sure is that Julie wouldn’t hurt Brian Dell. But Dyle Booth? That’s another story. I think he’s the guy did my computer up that way.”

“Did you get any threats?”

“Not directly, but the last time we did swim practice together, he was giving me the shark shit. And of course he knows Julie and I were…well, what we were. Before he did whatever he did to her down in Charlottesville.”

Jim heard the rationalization in Hays’s voice. He clearly was not willing to accept the notion that whatever happened at UVA might have been entirely consensual.

“And that’s all I know,” Hays said. “And, like I said, I can’t prove shit.”

“You didn’t tell this to Captain Rogers? Even after somebody tried to zap you?”

“No, sir. No proof. Plus, Julie’s really sensitive about Charlottesville. Besides, today? Captain Rogers was in the transmit mode. He didn’t want to hear anything from me or the other guys other than ‘Aye aye, sir.’”

Jim remembered the shark tag with the WD entwined in the limbs of the stick figure. “What was Dell’s first name? Brian?”

“No, sir. William was his first name. William Brian Dell.”

Jim thought it over. WD. And we’re back to Markham, he realized. Plus Midshipman Dyle J for Jones Booth. “I’ve got to discuss this with Special Agent Branner,” he said. “She may want to hear this firsthand, or she may go directly to Markham.”

“Sir?” Hays said, his expression tense. “Julie-Midshipman Markham-won’t talk about what happened between her and Dyle Booth. Not to me, and probably not to anyone. I got the impression it was humiliating in some way.”

“Not as humiliating as what happened to Brian Dell,” Jim said.

Hays didn’t respond.

“You’re on the honor board, Mr. Hays. We both know the Academy is about to slam the lid on this incident. Maybe even as we speak. Look, Branner and I are not after Julie Markham. But if she won’t talk to us, her expectations for a glorious commissioning week are going to blow up in her face. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“Ultimately, Mr. Hays,” Jim said softly, “even if the Dark Side buries it, internally they’ll want to blame somebody. This dant always has to blame somebody, right? And it’s never gonna be the system’s fault, is it? She won’t commission.”

Hays blinked but then nodded. He stared bleakly at the Severn River, where three haze gray YPs, signal flags flying, were rumbling in toward the seawall to practice mooring, pursued by a cloud of diesel exhaust. Jim prepared to get up from the bench. “You and Julie Markham still talking?”

“She’s polite. As long as I keep it casual.”

“Okay. If Markham won’t talk to us, we’ll question Booth. Tell her that. Ask her which version of the story she wants us to hear.”

Hays frowned.

“Another thing,” Jim said. “I’m telling Branner for two reasons. One is to find the truth. Second, to protect Markham.”

“From?”

“From Booth, dummy. If he’s the badass you say he is, once we bring him in, he may decide that Markham pointed the finger.”

“But she didn’t-I did.”

“He can’t know that, can he? So if you still value that young lady, make sure you stay in touch with her tonight, at least until you hear from either Branner or me that we have Booth. Got it?”

Hays nodded again while he massaged his calf muscles. A breeze off the river stirred the trees around them.

“There’s more to this than I’m telling you,” Jim said, thinking now about that shark business. “This guy could be a whole lot more dangerous than you appreciate. Does Markham’s lawyer know any of this?”

“I don’t know, sir. Julie’s not exactly sharing right now.”

“You better start. You’re done exercising. Go find Markham. Tell her that we know. Tell her we’re going to confront Booth. And even if she doesn’t want it, stay nearby.”

“Yes, sir.” Hays gulped, looking afraid. “I got it.”

It was 3:30 by the time Jim got cleaned up and back to his office, where he put a call in to Branner. Voice mail. Then he called her cellphone. More voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message. Okay, Special Agent, where the hell are you? he wondered. He called her cell phone back and left a message this time for her to call him ASAP, adding that he had a line on a possible suspect in the Dell case.

He had a big decision to make. Tell the dant what he’d uncovered about a possible link connecting Markham, Dell, and this Dyle Booth, or wait to talk to Branner first. If the heavies were coming back in the cover-up mode, they’d tell him to go back to supervising parking tickets in the Yard. The dant had put him into this spider fight, and the dant could take him back out, or even take his job. A direct order from Captain Robbins was never an exercise in ambiguity. It would be a lot more difficult to back Branner off the case, unless she, too, received some unambiguous guidance from her own chain of command, who had apparently been present at the elephant conclave up in D.C. today.

His phone rang.

“You try to call me?” Branner asked.

“Yeah, both lines.”

“And you didn’t get me, just like Harry Chang can’t get me right now unless he drives down here and clamps my wheels. I got back-channel word that they’re shutting the Dell case down. SecNav decision. They’re gonna rule it an accident, a DBM. Kid went up on the roof, fell off. End of story. I was on my way up to headquarters when a little bird whispered in my cell phone, so I shut off my phone and turned around. Checked voice mail and got your message.”

“Right,” he said. “Tommy Hays, Markham’s ex-boyfriend? He came to me with a name. We need to talk, but not on an open line.”

“Well hell, detective,” she said. “How about your place?”

Ev checked his voice mail when he got back to the office at 4:15. No messages from Julie or anyone else. He could understand not hearing from Julie. She might not even get back to her room until five o’clock or later, and she wouldn’t be carrying her cell phone around the Yard. But he was a little worried about Liz, after basically having told her he didn’t want to see her last night. He shut his office door, took a deep breath, and called her office.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” he blurted.

She laughed. “Of course not. Besides, my first ex blew into town last night for some corporate board meeting. He called me and we went out, got seriously drunk, and I think we had a grand time. Have you heard from Julie?”

He was so taken aback by what she’d said that he was about one second slow in answering. He consciously had to keep the surprise out of his voice. “Uh, no I haven’t. I put a call in to her cell phone voice mail, but, um, heard nothing.”

“Ev?”

“What?”

“I was kidding, Ev.”

“Oh, good,” he said without thinking. He heard her laughing again. Now he felt like an idiot. A teenage idiot at that.

“I’m so damned frustrated,” he said. “With all this… stuff going on with Julie. Cops in Bancroft Hall. Having to pretend that either the mids or I give a shit about classes at this point in the year. The dant taking me aside to make threats.”

“I did talk to Jim Hall. He confirms that they can hold up a commission. He says it’s usually done with football players who can’t pass the commissioning physical, but they can do it to anyone.”

“Great,” he groaned. “And where the hell’s Julie?”

“She’s got her head down. Exams are imminent. I’d suggest we leave her alone until something definitive happens. You’re letting your imagination wear you down.”

“That’s for damned sure,” he said, running his fingers through his thinning hair. “It’s just that I feel I’m supposed to be doing something. Not just sitting here.”

“Actually,” she said, “the less you do, the safer Julie probably is. Call me tonight.”

“I will. If I don’t shoot myself first.”

“Go row your boat again. But only half as hard this time.”

It was 4:30 by the time Jim got to the marina. He saw Branner’s Bronco in the marina parking lot and he pulled in next to it. Branner was sitting out in the cockpit, letting the last of the afternoon sun warm her face. She was slouched into one of the deck chairs, hands down on the chair rails and her head thrown back. Her eyes were closed. In repose, her face looked much more feminine and a lot less severe. She sat up when she felt the boat stir as he came aboard.

“So what do you figure?” he said. “If they can’t call you, they can’t shut you down?”

“That’s an order I didn’t want to hear until I talked to you. So speak to me.”

He sat down and told her what Hays had told him about Dyle Booth and his own near miss with electrocution.

“Judas Priest! And this guy’s a midshipman?” she asked, echoing his own question.

“Remember our discussion about Boy Scouts, and how this whole place operates on trust? How they assume, going in, that they’re dealing with basically good guys?”

“But they must have tests,” she said. “Plus, there’s all this class-to-class supervision and mentoring. How can a guy like what you’re describing-”

“Hays says the mids know he’s weird, but he apparently goes around at full military throttle. You know the type: fills out the uniform, everything polished and spit-shined to the max, twenty-four-seven military bearing. ‘Gonna be a gung ho Marine, sir, yes, sir!’”

A passing seagull veered away when Jim raised his voice. “But what’s the connection to Dell?” she asked.

“Julie Markham. Remember, Hays is her ex-boyfriend. Apparently, they broke up because Julie Markham stepped out.”

“Oh shit. With this Booth dude?”

“Apparently. Some swim team trip, an away meet. I don’t have details, but the thrust of what he said was that, whatever happened, she regretted it. A lot. She subsequently shut Booth down. Booth’s not pleased.”

“And Dell?”

“Well, that’s the interesting bit. Hays said Julie Markham kind of had Dell under her wing.”

Branner’s eyes narrowed. “But she said-”

“Yeah, right. Not so, according to Mr. Hays. But Hays is running scared now, after that attempt to kill him. Plus the fact that Captain Rogers told them to shut down. And graduate.”

“Anybody ordered you to shut down?” she asked.

“I called in to see if the dant was back. His admin puke told me they’re stuck out on Route Fifty somewhere.” He looked at his watch. “They’ll be back soon, though, so whatever we’re going to do, like talk to Markham, we have to do it now.”

“They’re scared,” she said. “Yesterday, they were threatening to delay Markham’s commission if she didn’t talk. Today, they’re telling the Honor Committee they won’t graduate if they do talk?”

“The Academy is under the SecNav’s thumb. An order is an order. And I think they’ll still burn Markham, just to say that they burned somebody.”

She got up and stretched. Jim admired the view, then asked if she wanted a beer. She said no, but he went below to get himself one. Jupiter swore at Jim amiably for not letting him out of the cage. Jim banged the bottom of his cage, provoking more bad language.

When he came back topside, Branner was sitting down again. “How’s about we call that lawyer?” she said. “Markham’s not going to talk to either of us without her anyway. Get her to set up a meeting. While we still can.”

“Markham probably doesn’t understand that she’s still in danger even if they do shut the investigation down. If not from the dant, then from Booth. Because there’s more. You remember that graffiti down in the tunnels? That shark thing?”

“Yes?”

“That’s what they call this Booth guy, on the swim team. Or actually, what he calls himself. The Shark.”

She gave him a long, level look. “ He’s our runner? The vampire wanna-be who likes to set traps and beat people up?”

He nodded. “They ever find that missing Goth girl?”

“Not that I know of,” she said, looking grim. “And he got Bagger, too, most likely.”

“And tried to fry Hays. Literally, this time.”

She looked across the water toward Bancroft Hall. “Man!” she said. “What kind of a monster did they let into that place?”

“A real one, if this is all true,” he said quietly. “And I’m thinking that we do have a way to make Markham talk to us after all.”

“How?”

“Dell was in her batt but not her company. She broke the chain of command if she was mentoring him outside his own company system. They could claim that if she hadn’t interfered, whatever happened to Dell might have been avoided. Indirect responsibility, but enough to negate everything she’s worked for here.”

“That’s pretty thin. You think they’d do that?”

“I think this commandant would. He’s a surface a Navy guy. Surface guys always have to blame somebody. And remember, their system is not-repeat, not -at fault here.”

“Much,” she said, shaking her head.

“Okay, so we explain this to Markham. Now she has everything to lose by keeping quiet. And maybe something to gain by coming clean to somebody-namely, us.”

She thought for a moment. “How are we going to send for either of them if the Academy is shutting down the investigation?”

“Because so far, no one’s told us that officially.”

She shook her head. “I hate these frigging games.”

“Then let’s get moving, before they do, Markham first, then Booth. And quickly.”

Ev was home, preparing to go out on the water again, when Julie finally called. “Something’s happening,” she said without preamble.

“Whoa, start at the beginning, Julie. What do you mean, ‘Something’s happening’?”

“Tommy Hays went to talk to that security officer, Mr. Hall. He told him…some stuff.”

“What stuff?”

Julie didn’t reply for a moment. He realized she had put her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone. Then she was back. “Tommy’s here with me right now. We’re down in Mitscher Hall, behind the mess hall. Tommy says he’s going to stay close to me until he hears from Mr. Hall.”

Ev shook his head. “I’m not following, Julie. What’s going on?”

“Mr. Hall told Tommy that the Academy is probably going to close down the NCIS investigation, but that they’re going to blame me for what happened to Brian-Midshipman Dell.”

Ev, bewildered, dropped into a kitchen chair. “Slow down, Julie, and let’s not do this on the phone. Can you get loose?”

“Dad, I think I should go to see Liz DeWinter.”

Well, about goddamn time, he thought. “I heartily agree,” he said. “Let me find her, tell her what’s happening. She’s probably still at the office. Call me back in five.”

He hung up and phoned Liz, who was still in the office. Keeping the explanation very short, he asked if Julie could meet with her there. Liz said fine. Ev called Julie’s cell phone and relayed the news.

“Can Tommy go with me?”

“Uh, hell, I don’t know. I guess so.”

“Because-oh shit, wait one, Dad.” He heard the phone hit the table, and then he heard Julie say, “Yes?” He waited again while she talked to someone else. He heard what sounded like some intense conversation, then Julie came back on the cell phone.

“That was the OOD’s mate. The front office says I’m to report to the commandant’s office to meet with the NCIS in thirty minutes.”

“Don’t go,” he said. “Go to Liz’s office instead.”

“But Dad-”

“Go to Liz’s office. Then get Liz to call the dant’s office and tell them you’ll meet with NCIS, but only in her office. If they insist, Liz can go back there with you, but this’ll give you time to talk to Liz, tell her what the hell’s happening.”

“Got it. I’ll call you when we get there.”

Ev hung up, thought about driving over to Liz’s office, then went to find the scotch instead.

Jim and Branner were getting into her Bronco when her cell phone rang. She looked at Jim, who gestured for her to hand it over. He clicked it open and answered. It was Liz DeWinter.

“Mr. Hall. Did I misdial? I was looking for Agent Branner.”

“Stand by one,” was all he said, and then moved closer to Branner so that she could talk and he could listen in.

“Yes, Ms. DeWinter,” Branner said.

“Julie Markham’s on her way to my office. I understand you want to talk to her?”

“Yes, we do. But we’re supposed to meet with her in Bancroft Hall. I was just going to call you.”

“Sure you were. Well, look, Agent Branner, why not make this easy for everyone-you come over here to my office.”

Jim nodded forcefully. “Okay,” she said. “That works. Mr. Hall and I will be right over.”

“Why Mr. Hall? What’s he got to do with this?”

“Is Midshipman Markham still your client?” Branner asked.

“Yes, of course. She never stopped being my client. And now I hear the Academy may not let her graduate.”

Jim motioned for Branner to give him the phone. “Liz?” he said. “Jim Hall. Let’s not do this on the phone. We need to talk to Markham, and time is of the essence. Is she there yet?”

“No, but she’s on her way over right now. Her ex-boyfriend is with her.”

“Hays? Good. And may I ask a favor? Don’t take any more phone calls, okay? And when Markham gets there, tell her we’re coming in to talk about Dyle Booth.”

“About what?”

“He’s a mid. We think he may have killed Brian Dell.”

“Whoa,” Liz said. “WTF?”

“Hold that thought, and, remember, don’t take any more calls. We’re on our way.”

Branner drove her Bronco, but Jim decided to take his truck. Both of them had turned off their cell phones to avoid inconvenient messages, but Jim had failed to turn off the police radio in his truck. The chief’s voice came up on the net as they rounded State Circle and turned down toward Liz’s office.

“Shit,” Jim murmured, picking up the mike.

“Hey, boss, the dant’s office is looking for you. And Special Agent Branner, too, apparently.”

“What’s the message, Chief?”

“ET call home?” Bustamente said.

“Got it, Chief, thanks. I take it the dant’s back in the Yard?”

“His admin guy didn’t say, but he did say the Man wants to see you, and now’d be really nice.”

“Roger that,” Jim said. “If anyone asks, you’re still looking for me.”

“Whassup?” the chief asked.

“What you don’t know right now can’t hurt you, Chief.”

“Heard that. Standing by.”

Jim thought about what to do while he waited for Branner to park. When the commandant wanted to see someone, he meant it literally, as in standing tall in his office. He suddenly didn’t feel right about having asked the chief to lie for him, so he fired up his cell phone and called the commandant’s office. He told them he was stuck out on Route 50, but that he’d had a message to call in. He was put on hold. He pulled in behind Branner, who came over to the window.

“I’m on disciplinary hold with the dant’s office,” Jim whispered after a minute had passed. Branner rolled her eyes and used her cell phone to check her voice mail.

“Mr. Hall,” came the commandant’s voice.

“Yes, sir,” Jim replied, straightening in his seat out of habit. Branner closed her phone and leaned in to listen.

“Where is Special Agent Branner?”

“Don’t know, sir,” Jim said. “I’ve been trying to raise her myself.”

“We have some new guidance in that matter you’ve been investigating. I won’t go into details over an open line, other than to say we have a SecNav determination in the matter. Branner’s people have also been informed.”

“Yes, sir, copy that. Do you have new instructions for me, sir?”

“Exactly, Mr. Hall. Back out, write up a report, print a single copy, and give that to me and the source file to Pren. Tonight, if you please.”

“I can do that, sir,” Jim said. “I’ve been keeping a running file. Are there any accountability issues remaining?”

The dant hesitated. “Just one, Mr. Hall. We’re going to address that via the Brigade Honor Committee. I understand you already approached the board regarding the individual in question.”

“Yes, sir, but that was not productive.”

“So Captain Rogers informs me. I think I can remedy that. Get me that report as soon as possible, Mr. Hall.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Jim said. “And that other matter? The tunnel matter?”

“We don’t need any more problems on our plate just now, Mr. Hall. The SecNav made that abundantly clear. In our view, the tunnel matter should go away in two weeks, right? Thank you.”

The circuit went down. A city cop appeared alongside in a cruiser and waved them out of the reserved parking spaces. Branner flashed her NCIS credentials at him and he nodded and drove off.

“Well, there it is,” he said. “We’ve been officially backed out.”

“You have,” she said. “I haven’t.”

“No messages?”

“Lots of messages,” she said. “But they all say the same thing: Call Harry Chang. No instructions, and nothing from the Academy directly.”

“Then we can still go meet with Markham.”

“I can. The question is, can you?”

He chewed on his lower lip. The Executive Department, at Branner’s request, had summoned Markham to a meeting in Bancroft Hall. Except she wasn’t going to show. Jim wondered if that fact would percolate up to the dant’s office at this hour. Was the left hand talking to the right hand? If he went with Branner, he’d be disobeying a direct order, which might cost him his job. On the other hand, the Academy appeared to be ready to come down on Markham. If Markham knew the truth about the Dell incident, this was no time to sweat the small stuff. Branner was watching him carefully.

“I’ll go. I think they’re going to railroad Markham. Not fair.”

“Unless she was indeed responsible,” Branner said. “Then you’re falling on your sword for nothing.”

“Shit happens,” he said.

She smiled at him and nodded. “Good call,” she said. “Maybe there’s hope for you after all.”

“Up yours, Branner.”

“In your dreams, cowboy.”

Hey. A little bird just whispered in my ear. Actually, it was a little E-mail intercept out of the deputy dant’s office. Someone’s been running her mouth. And now my name’s come up? The ghost of little Brian Dell getting ready to cause me trouble? I don’t think so. I think I have the cure for that shit. Everyone forgetting the video? On which you are absolutely the star? Which I can have out on the World Wide Web in a New York flash?

You think that I’ll just stand around if they corner me? Think I’ll just break down and cry, ask for forgiveness, tell them I’m a victim, too? Bullshit. I’ll take some di-rect and immediate effective action. I’ll take prisoners and I’ll execute their asses. I’ll take the high ground and tell the whole fucking Brigade what I think of them. And then, if I have to, I’ll show them all what a real man’s made of when his back’s to the wall. And I’ll do it in front of God and everybody. And you, too.

You said you wanted to go for a ride. Nobody forced you. You said you needed a rush, some thrills to make up for your oh-so-boring, so perfectly straight life. You came on to me, remember? We had a deal. So tell me you’re not going to try to stick it to me, not this late in our dark little game. Because, as we both know, I can stick it to you a whole lot worse than you can stick it to me.

Julie, baby: You bored?

They found Liz, Julie Markham, and Tommy Hays waiting for them in Liz’s darkly paneled conference room. They all sat down, and then Liz began to establish some ground rules. Branner waved her off. “We have more serious issues to talk about right now. Midshipman Markham, I’m still Special Agent Branner, and I have some questions for you about Midshipman Dyle Booth.”

At the mention of Booth’s name, Julie Markham’s face paled visibly. She looked sideways at Hays for a moment, as if to ask, How could you? Then Liz jumped in. “First, I need to know the background on all this,” she said. “They just got here, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mr. Hays,” Jim said. “Tell Ms. DeWinter and Agent Branner what you told me about Dyle Booth.”

“No, don’t,” Julie told Hays. “Don’t say anything at all. We don’t have to say anything, do we, Liz?”

Liz frowned. “No, you don’t, but-”

Before she could explain, Jim interrupted. “I just got off the phone with the dant. He ordered me to back out of the Dell investigation. He said that there had been a SecNav determination as to what happened to Dell.”

“Then that’s it, isn’t it?” Julie said, trying for a confident look. “It’s officially over?”

“For Dell, it was over when he hit the concrete,” Branner said, producing a painful silence at the table. “But not for you, apparently.”

Jim leaned forward. “I asked if there were any outstanding accountability issues. The dant said there was one, and it involved you, Midshipman Markham.”

“Goddamn it, why?”

“You want the technical answer or the real answer?”

Julie looked again at Tommy Hays, who just shook his head in bewilderment.

“Let’s hear the real answer,” Liz said.

“The real answer is that a midshipman died in Bancroft Hall. Someone must be held accountable for that. The official ruling will probably be a DBM-accident. Plebe went up on the roof and fell off. Internally, they know there’s more to it. Within the Academy, they’re probably going to use a fig leaf, say that the system just overwhelmed a plebe. But we know that’s not the whole story, is it, Midshipman Markham?”

Julie just stared at him.

Branner leaned forward. “You told us you didn’t know Dell other than as a summer plebe. But isn’t it true you were secretly mentoring Brian Dell?”

Julie set her jaw and didn’t answer. Hays closed his eyes, as if he was expecting to be slapped. Liz asked Julie if this was true.

“It might be,” Julie said very slowly.

“ Might be? You told me you didn’t really know Midshipman Dell,” Liz said. “Other than as a plebe among plebes.”

Julie stared down at the table.

“Well, here it is, Julie,” Jim said. “The dant is going to fire up the Brigade Honor Committee. Somehow, some way, they’re going to pin something on you relating to what happened to Dell. If they don’t know about your helping Dell, they will once a BIO starts asking questions, right? Especially if he talks to Mr. Hays here. My guess is that you won’t be found directly responsible for whatever it is they’re going to ‘conclude’ about Dell’s death, but you’re going to get tagged with something.”

“That’s not fair!”

“It’s not fair, but it’s preferable to having the system get tagged. There’s always accountability, right? It’s the cornerstone of their whole program. So if it can’t be them, it’s going to be you.”

“Unless…” Branner began. Julie looked at her.

“For Christ’s sake, Julie,” Tommy Hays said. “Tell them. They think Booth may have done it. Tell them.”

Julie got out of her chair and went to the door. It was obvious she just wanted to bolt from the room. Jim saw Branner pushing her chair back surreptitiously, but nobody else moved. Then Julie turned around to face all of them.

“I’ve been on the Academy swim team since plebe year,” she said. “I’m a freestyler. So is Dyle. But I’m not in his league. Nobody is.”

“He’s a classmate?” Liz asked.

“That’s right. Dyle Jones Booth. We don’t compete, of course-he’s on the men’s team. But Dyle is…different. As a competitor, as a team member. He’s big. He was big when he got here, and he’s bulked up over the past four years. He’s going Marine option. Always was. He plays the part. Tons of gung ho bullshit, but you get the sense he does it just to fool the officers.”

“Are they fooled?” Jim asked.

“Yes, I think they are. I mean, the Marine officers eat that stuff right up. Dyle’s loud and he’s big and he’s way enthusiastic about everything military-marching, drill, shooting, hand to gland, spit and polish, giving commands. All that ‘Hoo-ah’ noise. He’s effective because you wouldn’t dream of not doing what he says.”

“Because there’s always an implied threat?”

“Not implied, Mr. Hall,” she said. “It’s right out there. It’s in his eyes. In his body language. And you get the impression he’d almost prefer it if you crossed him. Like he lives for that. ‘Go ahead, punk, make my day,’ that kinda deal.”

“What’s your connection, other than through the swim team?” Branner asked.

“Well, he’s in my batt.”

“He a striper?” Jim asked.

“No, sir, he’s not a striper. There’s something about him that I think bothered the Navy officers. He’s too much. Too loud. Over-the-top. Plus, behind their backs? He scoffs at the whole striper scene. Thinks it’s childish, boys ordering boys around. When he realized he’d never be one, he made like it wasn’t important anyway. Goes around counting the days until he gets to go to Quantico and starts what he calls his ‘real life.’”

“You think the officers are afraid of this guy?” Jim asked.

“No, sir, not exactly, but they know he’s different. On the other hand, he’s been a big-time medal winner for Navy in swimming, he’s beyond physically fit, and he’s a poster boy for the uniform. I think they’re mostly anxious to graduate him and then let the Marines deal with him.”

“And the plebes? How does he deal with the plebes?”

“They’re scared shitless of him,” she said, slipping back into her chair. Tommy Hays nodded emphatically.

“The system here is different from when you went through,” she said, speaking directly to Jim. “Now they try to teach leadership from the ground up. It begins in youngster year, when every youngster is responsible for mentoring one plebe. Every second-class mid is responsible for supervising two youngsters, and the firsties supervise the whole thing in the company structure. The plebes learn to follow; the upperclassmen learn to lead, to take care of their people. It’s a good system. It’s a smart system. But Dyle plays outside the system.”

“How so?”

“Dyle quit running the plebes, directly, about midyear. Now he menaces them. Shows up in their rooms after hours. He shadows them. Gets on a plebe and stays on him.”

“Why don’t the other upperclassmen call him out over this-he must be disrupting the company chain of command.”

“You don’t call out Dyle Booth,” Hays said. Everyone looked over at him. “Nobody in his right mind would do that.”

“Where’s his company officer?” Jim asked.

“He’s a Marine captain,” Julie said. “He goes around full bore, too. He thinks Dyle Booth is superman.”

“What happened between you and Booth?” Branner asked Julie.

“Dyle wanted me to go out with him. Not here, but when we went to away meets at other colleges. He said we were the best of the Navy freestylers and we ought to get together.” She shivered. “When he came on to me, it brought to mind images of those Nazi super-race breeding programs.” She paused for a moment. “I told him no. I told him he gave me the creeps. Besides, he knew I was seeing Tommy.”

“But he persisted?” Branner asked, prodding her.

After another moment’s hesitation, Julie said, “Yes.” Her voice was now almost down to a whisper. “There was this one away meet, down at UVA. Tommy and I had been arguing-over the future. There was this big frat party. Believe it or not, I’d never been to one of those. They party pretty hard down there in Charlottesville. I…I got a little drunk.”

She stopped and looked over at Tommy, as if seeking some moral support. But then she continued. “Actually, I got really drunk. Tommy hadn’t gone down there, because he was still pissed off at me. But Dyle was there. He had a bunch of sorority girls hanging all over him, but he made it clear whom he wanted that night.”

“Okay,” Branner said brusquely. “So you had a one-night stand with supermensch. Big deal. Shit happens. What then?”

Julie blinked at the way Branner dismissed the significance of what she was saying. “Eventually, I told Tommy. He kind of went off. As he had every right to, I guess.” She looked sideways at Hays, who was red-faced now, staring down at the table. “But Dyle was so triumphant. I think it was always about that-another trophy for him. He kept making comments. Every time we ran into each other, he’d have to say something embarrassing. People were talking.”

Jim still wondered if they were hearing the whole story. Branner was right: A one-night hookup in your senior year ought not to be the end of the world. “Was he really trying to score again, or was he just crowing?” he asked.

“I thought it was just Dyle doing his Tarzan act, but then he got pushy, real pushy. I told him no way in hell. He kept it up. One day, I went off on him after practice. Very public scene. I said some things, the kind of things we all felt about Dyle Booth, although no one had ever come out with them before. Especially classmates. He got all quiet.”

“Did he threaten you?” Branner asked.

“I started to get these E-mails,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “No name line, but they were from Dyle all right. Lots of stuff about being the Shark. They’d just appear on my screen when I’d go on-line. I couldn’t do anything with my computer until I’d read them. And then they’d disappear, all by themselves. I’d try to delete them. No go. But once I clicked on them, they’d delete themselves. No path. No trace.”

“What’d he say?”

“He began to tell me stuff, stuff that he’d been doing over the past year. In Bancroft. Here in Crabtown. Stuff about the Goth scene over at St. John’s. Seriously weird shit. Sex parties. Some of their cult stuff. Things he called ‘vampire drills.’ Stuff I didn’t want to hear.”

“Did he talk about going into town and beating up townies?” Jim asked.

Julie nodded. “He called it ‘training,’ for when he got into Marine recon. He was always talking about going ‘ree-con.’ He said he uses the tunnels to come and go, whenever he feels like it. Says he owns them.”

Jim looked over at Branner. “When did all this happen?”

“The E-mails started during dark ages-January or thereabouts. It was like I was his best friend, so he could tell me all this shit. He’d even send pictures. There was this one, where he dressed up as Dracula or something. It just bannered on my screen one night while Mel and I were retrieving some papers. It even had sound. Mel damn near fainted, it was so real, so clear…and so Dyle.”

“You think he was getting into your room, messing with your computer?” Branner asked.

“No, I think he did it over the Brigade intranet. Dyle can make computers do anything he wants. He claims to have done shit on the faculty intranet, too. Like penetrate the faculty servers? He sent me a single history exam question once, and it was on the exam the next day.” She looked at both of them. “He talked about you two. That he’d done stuff to you.”

“Did he ever threaten you?” Branner asked.

“What do you mean?” Julie said, looking at Liz as if for help.

“Did he ever say that if you didn’t come across, he’d do something to you? Hell-o, Julie? A threat, you know?”

Liz intervened. “Where are you going with that question?” she asked.

Branner sighed. “If this guy was threatening Midshipman Markham, she should have gone to her chain of command. Obviously, she didn’t. I’m wondering why.”

“Julie was a three-striper,” Hays said. He saw Liz’s confusion. “A striper, you know, a midshipman officer. She was a three-striper on the battalion staff. If she’d gone to the Dark Side about Dyle, she would’ve had to tell what happened down at UVA. That she got drunk and had sex with a classmate. Total loss of personal control. It would have destroyed her reputation in the battalion and probably in our class. Wasn’t going to happen.”

“From what you’ve told us, I’m wondering why Dyle Booth didn’t tell,” Branner said. “To get even for you shutting him down.”

“Not his style,” Julie said. “First, because that would be bilging a classmate. Not done. And second, I think he wanted to hurt me himself. The E-mails were some kind of campaign, as if he were exposing himself to me. And then he found out about Brian Dell. That I was secretly helping him. I think he decided it would be more fun to terrorize Dell than to come at me directly. And since, strictly speaking, I was outside the chain of command in helping Dell, I couldn’t report Dyle for that, either.”

“But surely Dell’s own mentors, his youngster, the other youngster in his own company-they would have known that Booth was going after this kid.”

Julie shook her head. “That was the thing. Dell’s youngster resigned halfway through the year. Didn’t come back after Christmas leave. He was failing three subjects, and he’d decided he hated being here. So Dell didn’t have a youngster. No top cover. That was one of the reasons I took him on.”

“Wouldn’t somebody in his company have seen it happening?”

“Not with Dyle. He’d come in the night. Or catch Dell out on one of the athletic fields. Ambush him coming back from an E.I. you know, extra instruction, session. Sometimes Dyle just…appears. Plus, that company isn’t one of the better ones. The youngsters in his company knew that Dell was adrift, but it meant they had one less plebe to worry about, so they let it slide. They probably were clueless about what Dyle was doing. Hell, I didn’t know about Dyle’s running him until just before…before Brian, you know.”

“What happened?” Jim asked.

“Dell came to my room shortly before taps. Melanie was studying in the next room with some of her friends. He wanted to go topside. He was really upset. We used to talk sometimes, up on the roof. Guys go up there when they want privacy. He asked if we could meet that night, after taps. I said okay. He seemed really down, really tired. He was this little guy, you know? He looked about fourteen that night. So I said I’d meet him.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. That’s when he told me about Dyle. That he’d been ordered to come around to Dyle’s room at all hours. That Dyle was putting shit in his E-mail account, that Dyle had penetrated his computer, erased homework assignments, shit like that. Dyle would appear after midnight sometimes, or real early in the morning. Brian said he was scared of Dyle. That Dyle was making him do stuff.”

“‘Do stuff’?”

“He wouldn’t say what exactly, but I got the impression that Dyle was, like, turning him out. You know, maybe sexual humiliation stuff? Like he assumed Dell was gay. You have to remember-Dyle was twice Dell’s size.”

“ Was Dell gay?” Branner asked.

“I don’t think so,” Julie said. “More like weak. Math wizard, supposedly a high-scoring diver, but I don’t know where he ever competed. He was wiry, but too small.”

“Why didn’t he report what was going on? Tell me this wasn’t normal plebe year stuff,” Jim said.

“Not at all. It’s really changed, even since I’ve been here. It’s much more structured now. That’s what all the mentoring layers are about. But even so, plebes don’t go to the Dark Side with complaints against the upperclass, not if they want to stay here.”

Jim knew this was true. The way the system was supposed to work was that a plebe’s own upperclassmen would step in if someone got out of hand. “Was he suicidal?”

“No. Just down. Felt he couldn’t win. And Dyle was scaring him. He wanted to put his chit in. Resign. But not kill himself. He talked about going to another college. ‘A real one,’ he said.”

“What did you do?”

“When I heard how bad it was getting, I told him to go back to his room and that I was going to get it stopped.”

Branner had been taking notes. “How?” she asked, looking up.

“I didn’t know at the time. But I had pretty much decided to go to Dell’s company officer and tell him everything I knew. They had some other problems in that company that I’d heard about, so I figured they’d be in the mood to deal with an outside firstie running one of their plebes.”

“And did you?”

“No,” she said. “Because I ran into Dyle Booth on the way back to my room. I’d swear he knew I’d been up there with Dell. I don’t know how, but Dyle gets around, especially at night. He said he’d been to my room, and then he’d come topside to find me. Anyway, I told him off. Said I was going to get this shit stopped, one way or another.”

“And what did he do?”

“He went all cold. Gave me his big-deal shark look. That’s what we call it on the team. That wall-eyed thing he does underwater. Told me to go ahead, knock myself out. Got real calm, like he had a plan all ready. That scared me, actually. I’d expected him to get in my face. But he backed off, said he had something to do that night out in town, and that he’d be ready to deal with the Dell problem in the morning.” Julie shivered. “I had no idea then-”

“Did he actually threaten to do something to Midshipman Dell?”

Julie shook her head. “No, it was more like I could do or say anything I wanted to, but it wouldn’t make any difference. To him or to Dell. I know now I should have gone right to the OOD, right then and there. But I was scared, and I didn’t know what I was going to do the next morning. It never occurred to me that he’d-” She stopped, tears forming in her eyes.

Jim was about to ask another question, but he felt Branner’s hand touch his arm. Wait, she was signaling. See what she says next. Jim waited for her to continue.

“I got back to my room, and Mel was already asleep. I decided just to hit my tree, regroup in the morning. Like I said, it never occurred to me that Dell was in physical danger. I figured that Dyle might run him harder, or do some physical hazing. But he’d said he was going over the wall, out into town. So I figured nothing would happen that night.” She looked up at them, anguish in her eyes now. “I got that wrong, didn’t I?”

Tommy Hays moved sideways in his chair and took her hand. He looked at both Jim and Branner. “Hey?” he said quietly. “This is the Naval Academy. This kind of shit, this kind of guy-this doesn’t happen here. We’re here to become naval officers. We all bitch and moan about the system, but we believe in it. The officers believe in it. Somehow, this evil bastard got in, and the system can’t see him because they’ve forgotten how to look for some psycho like this.”

“Julie,” Liz said, “do you think Dyle Booth actually killed Brian Dell?”

“I don’t know,” Julie said in a very small voice. “He was big enough, and Brian was small. If he got him up on that roof, you know, by ordering him to go there, walk the ledge, something like that, he could have. Why don’t you ask him?”

“That’s next,” Jim said. “Liz, I think you and Julie here need to go see the commandant. The supe, even. They need to hear this.”

“I disagree,” Liz said. “At least for the moment. You said yourself they were going to blame her for what happened to Dell. I wouldn’t advise her to make it easy for them.”

“I failed to take action,” Julie said in a low voice. “I am responsible.”

“Dyle Booth is responsible, Julie,” Jim said. “From everything I’ve heard about this guy, he’d have found a way to get to Dell even if you’d gone to the OOD that night. It’s not like you could have proved it.”

“What are you two going to do?” Liz asked Jim.

“Mr. Hall and I are going over into the Yard and summon Mr. Booth to the front office for a little chat,” Branner said.

“Good luck with that,” Julie said.

“Excuse me?”

“Because he probably already knows you’re looking for him. I don’t know how, but that’s just Dyle. I mean, there were lots of people around when the mate came down and said I had to go see NCIS. Bancroft Hall is a hive. Word gets around fast.”

“We’ll see about that,” Branner said. “But we have other business to discuss with Mr. Booth, over and above the Dell incident.”

Jim stood up, and so did Branner. “Ultimately, you’ll have to go talk to them, Julie,” she said.

“Why?” Liz asked.

“Because they need to hear the truth. Up to now, the administration’s been playing the usual political game. Protect the Academy’s image at all costs. But this is very different. We have a damned good indication of homicide here. And even if the dant still wants to run for cover, the supe won’t. Admiral McDonald’s not that kind of guy.”

“You have an awful lot of faith in the system, Agent Branner,” Julie said.

“I think Tommy here was correct,” Jim said. “This system wasn’t designed to spot a psychopath.” He looked at his watch. “Liz, we’ll call you when we get something. Right now, we need to move out.”

Jim and Branner walked into the OOD’s office in Bancroft Hall fifteen minutes later. Branner asked that they summon Midshipman First Class Dyle Booth to the office. The OOD said he first needed to get permission from the deputy commandant, Captain Rogers. Two minutes later, Rogers came into the OOD’s office and asked them both to step into his office. Closing the door, he told them that he had orders to refer any requests from NCIS directly to the commandant.

“This is basically a continuation of what we started with the honor board,” Branner said. “We have new information.”

“I hear you, Special Agent,” Rogers said. “But we’ve had a SecNav determination in the Dell case, and now the commandant has directed that NCIS activities in regard to the Dell case be suspended. Mr. Hall, we were told that you had been informed of this.”

“The commandant told me to back out, yes,” Jim said. “But Agent Branner here hasn’t received any such instructions from her chain of command. I came along to see what was going on.”

Rogers gave him a peculiar look, as if to say, Nice try, sunshine. Just then, Captain Robbins opened his door and summoned them both to come in. He told Jim to close the door and then, standing behind his desk, addressed himself to Branner.

“Special Agent Branner, what’s this all about? Where have you been? Your people have been trying to contact you.”

“We’ve been meeting with Midshipman Markham and her lawyer,” Branner said. “We have new information on the Dell case.”

“There is no more Dell case,” the dant said firmly. “The SecNav has directed a finding of death by misadventure.”

“But my investigation wasn’t finished. How can anybody make a determination until the investigation is finished?”

“There are larger issues at stake here, Agent Branner,” Robbins said, sitting down. “We know that Dell went off the roof and died as a result. You were directed to rule out homicide. You were directed to proceed expeditiously. I’m assuming you did that. You reported no evidence of a homicide.”

“I didn’t report at all,” Branner said, obviously getting angry.

“Mr. Harry Chang would contradict you, I think,” Robbins said. “At least he told the SecNav that no evidence of homicide had been uncovered.”

“We weren’t finished, damn it. Mr. Chang knows that.”

“That’s not what he said to the SecNav. He said you had no evidence.”

“But there is new information,” Jim said. “And we need to-”

“You, sir, need to go back to your regularly assigned duties,” Robbins said. “Any taskings related to the Dell case are hereby rescinded.”

They just stared at him. He put up his hands. “Look, this thing has gone on long enough. We’ve been beaten up in the media. Rumors and innuendo abound. Dell’s parents are being torn this way and that. The Board of Visitors is asking questions. The supe and I are of the opinion that any further rooting around will only make things worse. We need to move on. The SecNav agrees.”

Jim could see that Branner was about to unload with both barrels, so he tried to preempt her. “Captain Robbins, we have reason to believe that another midshipman, a firstie, was involved in what happened to Brian Dell. Maybe even had a hand in it. We can’t close this case until we at least pull that string.”

“ We can and will close the case, Mr. Hall. This is no longer a matter for your concern. If Special Agent Branner has reservations, she should take them up through her own chain of command. We are done with this thing.”

“And you’re willing to let a murderer graduate from your wonderful institution?” Branner asked.

“Ms. Branner. Those are strong words. Let me ask you right here and now: Do you have a single scrap of physical evidence that someone, anyone, murdered Brian Dell?”

“No, but I do have evidence that a senior naval officer is obstructing me from ever getting our hands on such evidence.”

The word obstructing hung in the air for almost fifteen seconds while Robbins and Branner glared at each other. Then he punched the intercom and told his secretary to get Mr. Harry Chang at NCIS headquarters on the line. Then he swiveled around in his chair and stared out the windows down into Tecumseh Court. Jim and Branner looked at each other. They were still standing in front of the dant’s desk like a pair of truants. Then one of the lines lighted up and the secretary announced that Mr. Chang was holding on line one. Robbins, still facing away from them, reached back for the phone.

“Harry? Have you been in contact with Special Agent Branner lately?”

He waited for a reply. “No, but actually, she’s right here. I’ve explained to her that the Dell thing is being shut down. She says that she has new information and that I’m obstructing a murder investigation. Would you like to do some calibrating?”

He listened for a few seconds, then turned around to hand the phone to Branner. “Mr. Hall, come outside with me, if you please.”

Jim followed Robbins out into the secretarial area, closing the door behind him so Branner could have some privacy. No doubt Chang was going to go off on her.

“Mr. Hall, you like your job here? You want to keep it?”

Jim looked down at him. Robbins’s face was controlled, but the anger was clearly visible in his eyes. The secretary tactfully got up and left the room. Jim tried to think of something really clever to say, but before he got anything out, Branner appeared in the doorway.

“Captain Robbins?” she said in a perfectly neutral tone of voice. “Mr. Chang would like a word.”

Robbins gave Jim one last meaningful look and went back into his office. Branner looked at Jim and tipped her head in a “Let’s go” motion. They left the office suite and went out into the Rotunda. He started to ask her what had happened, but she shook her head. They went on outside into Tecumseh Court. Night had fallen. They walked in silence down the wide worn steps, flanked by ancient bronze cannons, and continued down Buchanan Road until they reached Jim’s truck. They got in and sat there in the shadows created by the streetlights. The white bulk of the superintendent’s quarters, Buchanan House, gleamed in a bath of floodlights to their right.

“I am so pissed off, I can’t see straight,” she growled through clenched teeth.

“I got asked if I liked my job,” he offered. “If that’s any consolation.”

She grunted.

“I was trying to think of some really cool reply just when you came to the door,” he continued. “And how’s Mr. Chang this evening?”

“Showing lots of teeth.”

“Neat trick over a phone.”

“But one he does rather well. I think he figured out I’d been playing coy with the phones this afternoon.”

“Did you get to explain that we have new information on the Dell case?”

“There is no Dell case. And, no, I didn’t, because I was invited to go into the receive mode right from the start.”

“Know that feeling,” he said. “I really did want to ask the dant what it was he was going to do to Julie Markham, but he seemed to have a locked transmitter, too.”

“I can’t believe they’d just fold the whole thing under a rug like this.”

“Well, I don’t agree with it, but I can see how the people up in D.C. might talk themselves into it. The SecNav asking Chang, ‘You have evidence of anything other than an accident?’ ‘Negative,’ Chang replies. SecNav says, ‘The security officer down there, you know, that world-famous detective? He’s got some wild-ass theories, but evidence?’ ‘Why, no, Mr. Secretary.’ ‘All right, then. Wrap it up. Whole Navy’s getting a black eye. Enough, awreddy.’”

“And Short Round back there going, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Secretary, we can certainly do that, sir. Right now, if you’d like, sir.’” She made a rude noise.

“Well, there is one question: Now that we’ve heard testimony that implicates this guy Booth in both the Dell matter and what’s been going on down in those tunnels, what’re we going to do about it?”

Branner looked over at him. “How well do you like your job, Mr. Hall?”

“Not well enough to cover up a murder, if that’s what happened,” he declared, surprising himself.

She turned fully sideways in the seat. “Sure about that? People who go standing on principle in the government usually find out where they got that expression ‘slippery slope.’”

“You keep telling me it’s a nothing job,” he pointed out.

Branner smiled. “Tell me this: If I weren’t in the picture at all, what would you do right now?”

“I’d go hunt down this kid, Booth. Look him in the eye and see if he was the guy in vampire makeup who’s been screwing around with our tunnels. And if he was, I’d cuff his ass, arrest him, and haul him down to the Academy police station volleyball court for a game of Little Slugger.”

“No you wouldn’t,” she said. “First, you’re not a cop. Second, even if you were, a tune-up queers the deal for any prosecutor. Third, baseball bats went out with the KGB.”

He laughed in the darkness. “What would you do?”

“Well, look. In one sense, they’re all correct: We have no frigging evidence. Just the word of two frightened midshipmen. Julie Markham, who shouldn’t have been messing with that plebe outside of the chain of command. And Tommy Hays, her ex-boyfriend, who knows Booth screwed his girlfriend, and thinks the guy tried to ice him. Hell, maybe she was right: If she’d stayed out of it, his own supervisors would eventually have detected the Dyle Booth thing. As it is-”

“As it is, the kid’s dead,” he said. “That’s all that matters now. I say we go find Booth and interrogate him.”

“Say we did. He could just shine us on. Say absolutely nothing. Deny everything. Who saw him running this plebe in the dead of night? Who can prove he had any connection with Dell? The only one really pointing the finger is Julie Markham, and she’s the one in trouble, not Booth.”

He sighed. She was right on all counts, damn her eyes. He wasn’t a cop. He had no professional training in the rights of suspects and witnesses. Booth did not have to say a frigging thing. Just then, headlights swept across their faces and they saw the supe’s official Navy sedan swing into the arched driveway of Buchanan House. When it stopped, they saw the aide and the admiral get out. The two talked for a minute in the driveway, and then the admiral went inside. Jim looked at Branner.

“There’s the Man. Wanna take a shot?” he asked.

She thought about it for a few seconds and then nodded. “Sure, why the hell not? Can’t dance.”

Ev got out of the shower and heard the phone ringing. It was Liz, who suggested he come down to Angelo’s on the waterfront, where she was taking Julie and Tommy Hays. Resisting the urge to pelt her with questions, he said he’d be there in twenty minutes.

The restaurant was barely half full, so they had some privacy. Liz took him through the meeting with Hall and Branner while Julie and Tommy Hays sat there munching on some calamari and avoiding eye contact with Ev. When she was finished, Ev didn’t know what to think, other than that he was truly upset that Julie had lied about her involvement with Dell.

“Are they going to go after this Midshipman Booth?” he asked.

“They said they were,” Liz said. “But the powers that be might, in effect, protect Booth if they’ve decided to shut the investigation down.”

“And somehow smear Julie with what happened to Dell?”

Julie started to say something, but Liz beat her to it. “The more I think about that, the more I believe we can stop it.”

“How?” Julie asked. Hays, who’d reminded Julie about exams, was looking at his watch.

“Branner,” Liz said. “I got the impression she wasn’t going to just sit by and let that happen.”

Julie was shaking her head. “That Branner woman wasn’t exactly full of sympathy,” she said. “Far as she’s concerned, I lied to her when I said I didn’t really know Brian Dell.”

“Well, news flash, Julie, sounds like that’s exactly what you did,” Ev said. This produced a strained silence at the table, and netted him a warning look from Liz. But he plunged on. “I agree with Liz that Booth is a lot more responsible for what happened to Dell than you are. You were trying to help the poor guy; this Booth was apparently more interested in torturing him. Anyone else know you were mentoring him?”

“His roommate, maybe,” Julie said. “Unless Dell kept it from him. But you know how it is with roommates.”

“But NCIS knows,” Hays pointed out. It was the first time Tommy had said anything about the case, and Ev nodded his acknowledgment. The waiter brought a large bowl of steaming pasta and some sauces and cheese. He put it on a lazy Susan in the middle of the table and then set out bowls. They stopped talking and attended to the food, which Ev discovered was better than he’d expected. When they were finished, Tommy excused himself, saying he had to get back for study hours. He told Julie to call him on his cell once she got back into Mother B. She said she would. He offered to chip in for dinner, but Liz waved him off. He thanked her and left.

“What should I do if they call me in when I sign back in?” Julie asked Liz. Ever since Ev had made his remark about her deception, Julie wouldn’t look at him.

“Who?” Liz asked.

“The commandant. Or Captain Rogers.”

“You respectfully comply. But you tell them nothing about your interaction with Dell. You tell them that, on advice of counsel, you won’t discuss the Dell case. But if what Mr. Hall said is correct, I wouldn’t expect any summonses.”

“Unless that Branner woman sits down with the dant and spills everything,” she said.

“Agent Branner has other fish to fry right now. Specifically, Midshipman Dyle Booth.”

Julie glanced around the restaurant, as if half-expecting to see Booth peering in through a window. “If Dyle’s gotten wind of anything, he’s going to come to see me,” she said.

“If you’d like,” Ev said, “we can stop screwing around and go see the commandant. Or the supe. Tonight. Right now. Tell him everything that’s been revealed tonight. Let him get ahold of Booth. I still think that’s the way to go.”

“Your lawyer disagrees most emphatically,” Liz said. The waiter came and cleared away the dishes, then poured Liz and Ev some more wine. Julie took the opportunity to visit the ladies’ room. Liz waited until the waiter left them alone. “Ev, what the hell are you doing?”

“She did lie, damn it. She knows better. Four years of the Academy and she lies? Shit. She ought to march in there, tell the whole truth, and take the consequences.”

“You guys amaze me,” she said, looking around to make sure Julie wasn’t walking back to the table. She leaned toward him. “She’s been wanting to do the same dumb thing. Look, Julie’s brushing right up against a homicide investigation. Under those circumstances, you don’t tell anyone anything until you know you’re going to get something in return. A deal, a break, some consideration. In case you’ve forgotten, Ev, ours is an adversarial legal system.”

“Legal, schmegal,” he muttered, indicating with his eyes that Julie was returning. “The honor code demands it.”

Liz bit her lip and did not reply. Julie slid into her chair and looked from Ev’s face to Liz’s. “You two look like an old married couple having an argument,” she said.

“Your father’s just a wee bit frustrated,” Liz said, giving Ev another warning look.

“Why, because you can’t do something about all this?” Julie asked Ev, her face guarded.

Joanne used to get that look, he thought. “Partly,” he said. “And partly because nobody over there’s behaving like they should.”

Julie stared at him. He felt a tingle of fear in his belly, because she obviously understood exactly what he was saying. He could almost see her withdrawing from them. The Navy part of him was fiercely proud. The parent part was suddenly apprehensive.

Liz cleared her throat. “Julie,” she said. “Your father here is having an attack of the stupids, I’m afraid. The very best thing you can do right now is nothing. Go back and get ready for exams. Keep your mouth shut, and await developments. Let’s not go snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”

“No, he’s not,” Julie said in a low voice. She hesitated and then stood up, carefully arranging her chair at the table. “Having an attack of the stupids, I mean. Thanks for dinner, Liz. And don’t worry-I’ll give it a night’s rest before I do or say anything.” She reached under the chair, where her midshipman’s hat was perched on the rungs. “You two look good together,” she said, turning the hat in her hands. “I’m glad for you both. And I mean that.” Then she walked out of the restaurant, her back stiff.

Ev stared at the front door after she’d closed it. The waiter zipped by and asked about coffee. They both said yes at the same time.

“Every time I think I understand Julie,” Liz said, “she surprises me. You know her tones of voice-was that sarcasm?”

“No, I don’t think so. But it sounded a lot like good-bye.”

“Special Agent Branner and Jim Hall, security officer, to see Admiral McDonald about the Dell matter,” Jim said.

The steward asked them to step in and wait in the anteroom. Two minutes later, he reappeared and asked them to follow him upstairs. He escorted them into the admiral’s study, then closed the paneled doors and left. Admiral McDonald got up to greet them. His service jacket with its one big gold stripe and a smaller one just above it hung on the back of an upholstered chair. There was a half-full martini glass sitting on the side table next to his chair.

“Mr. Hall,” the supe said, offering his hand. “And you are Special Agent Branner, as I recall. Please sit down. I understand this concerns the Dell matter.”

“Yes, sir, it does.”

“You’re aware the Dell matter has been decided?”

“Yes, sir,” Branner said. “But we have new information.”

The admiral frowned and looked at his watch. “I can give you ten minutes. Then I have a reception to go to.”

Jim launched into an explanation of why they had come to see him. The supe heard him out, asking no questions, just listening. Only once did he glance at his watch. When Jim was finished, the admiral got up and began to pace the room.

“And you feel this Midshipman Booth was involved in Dell’s fall?”

“Yes, sir,” Branner said. “One way or another.”

“Do you have any evidence of this, other than what Markham and Hays told you?”

“Not yet, sir.”

The admiral turned to face them. “So, on a factual basis, nothing has changed: You have no conclusive physical evidence of homicide. You have the unsworn testimony of two other midshipmen implicating Booth in illegal acts. But that’s it?”

“We need to interview Booth,” Branner said. “If he is the same individual who’s been acting out in the utility tunnels, we can probably get evidence. But not if we can’t even interview him.”

“And the dant said no?”

“That’s correct, sir. He said SecNav has spoken and that’s it.”

The admiral went back to his chair and stood there for a moment.

“The problem is, boys and girls, that the secretary of the entire Navy has spoken. Based in great part on what we’ve told him. And what your bosses basically corroborated, Ms. Branner. Now you’re asking me to approach the throne and tell the SecNav that his findings and determinations are incorrect.”

“Yes, sir. At least temporarily, until we can complete this investigation.”

“Well, that’s a real problem, Ms. Branner,” he said, sitting back down. “Look, you probably can’t appreciate this fact, but the Academy has to practice defensive siege warfare on a pretty much continuous basis. We have enemies: the liberals in Congress, budgeteers within the Defense Department, the antimilitary element of the media, the perpetual peaceniks. At one end of the spectrum, people see us holding these kids to higher standards and accuse us of being elitist. At the other end, some of our own alumni rant and rave that we’re caving in to some vast feminazi conspiracy aimed at emasculating the dreaded male warrior culture once and for all.”

“Sir, I-”

“Hear me out, please. When things go wrong here, as they inevitably do, the people who hate everything we stand for tend to pile on, with visible glee, I might add. And should we make accommodation, then the alumni pile on. I spend a whole lot of my time on damage control.”

“I’m not sure I understand the significance of the alumni, Admiral,” Jim said. “I’m an alumnus, for instance.”

“I’m talking about the alumni who wear three and four stars on their shoulders. Unlike the civilian university world, Mr. Hall, our alumni sit on our promotion boards.”

“So this is about turning two stars into three, Admiral?”

The admiral’s face hardened. “That’s a cheap shot, Mr. Hall. There are a couple hundred other officers here besides me. Being superintendent, I have to protect their careers.”

“We’re taking dead Brian Dell’s point of view, Admiral,” Branner said. “If what we’ve learned is true, the Academy let him down big-time.”

The admiral glared at her. “That’s a big if, Ms. Branner,” he said. “And suppose you do interview this Booth and he just tells you to pound sand. What then?”

“We take him apart. We search his room. We interview his weird girlfriends over in town. We compare hair, fibers, blood, DNA, fingerprints, voiceprints, and E-mails with crime scene evidence from the muggings in town, Dell’s room, Dell’s body, Markham’s person-in other words, we focus on a suspect and we investigate his ass.”

“The problem is, you have no evidence to justify reopening this investigation, Agent Branner. Plus, you are just about out of time, because very soon, the vice president of the United States is going to commission the entire class, and then they will be gone.”

“Not all of them, Admiral,” Jim said. “There’ll be football players with ruined knees, at least a couple of academic holds, maybe somebody with appendicitis. You could always add Booth to that list. Just because he graduates doesn’t make him immune from military justice.”

The admiral sighed and looked at his watch again.

“You know, Admiral,” Branner said, “slamming the lid on this thing doesn’t exactly square very well with your new ethics and morality program, does it? I mean, you’re always telling the mids that the proof of the program is when people practice what they preach. I’ve got an idea: Why not put the question to the midshipmen? See what they’d do with it. Exams are almost here; there’s a super final exam question for you.”

The admiral gave her a pained look. “I’ve got to go. You’ve got to go. You have no evidence. All you have is a he says/she says finger-pointing drill. That can go on forever. At this juncture, my job is damage control. I’m sorry.” He pushed a small button under the side table, and the steward appeared a moment later to show them out.

As they headed for the door, the admiral had a final question. “Mr. Hall, didn’t the dant tell you to stand down from this matter? That we already had a SecNav determination?”

“Yes, sir, he did.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“No, sir. He does not.”

The admiral stared at him for a moment. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Hall, but didn’t you come to the Academy MarDet after an incident in the Bosnia campaign? A blue on blue, where they blamed you and then found out someone else was responsible?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, this time, I believe it is on you. It’s been nice knowing you, Mr. Hall.”

Twenty minutes later, Jim and Agent Branner sat in one of the clam bars along the city dock, having a beer and some fish and chips. They ate in silence, digesting what had just been said in Buchanan House. The clam shack was almost empty, the tourists having gone back to their hotels or into one of the local restaurants. Jim wiped oil off his mouth and hands and crumpled up the cardboard container.

“I don’t each much fried food,” he said, “but every once in awhile, this stuff hits the spot.”

“A spot that usually stays with me forever,” Branner said, patting her tummy. “So what now, Sherlock?”

“I’m conflicted, filled with self-doubt, suffering low personal esteem, and I’m probably a victim,” he replied with a straight face.

She grinned. “In other words, it beats the shit out of you, does it?”

“Something like that. I know what I want to do, but that augurs badly for what’s left of my job security.”

“What job security? ‘It’s been nice knowing you, Mr. Hall.’ You’re history.”

“I’m technically a civil serpent. I at least get a hearing. And I’m not sure they’d want to have any of this pop out in a civil service hearing.”

“Maybe. But what they’d do in Washington is create a new position for you, then forget to budget for it. And you’d get to find a new home somewhere.”

“Oh well, screw ’em if they can’t take a joke. I loved it when you suggested the supe do the right thing-practice what they preach. That bit about asking the mids what they would do-that was medium brilliant.”

“But, bottom line-”

“Even if they don’t smear Julie Markham, this Dyle Booth guy gets commissioned. A Marine officer and a gentleman by act of Congress. A sadist at least, and maybe a murderer.”

“There’s still a chance we’re wrong,” she said. “The admiral kept pounding on our weak spot: zero real evidence.”

An obese waiter wheezed over and removed their debris, wiping down the counter with a rag that left about as much grease as it picked up. “But they won’t even let us talk to this guy,” he said. “If I could just get a look at him, I think I could tell if he was the runner. I’ll never forget those eyes.”

She finished her beer and slid the empty bottle down the full length of the counter, where it fell off the end, landing right in the trash can. Jim knew if he tried that, the bottle would miss the can and break all over the floor.

“So now what?” Branner asked. “We just give it up for Lent?”

“You mean do what we’re told for once?” He rubbed the sides of his face with both hands. He was tired, and eating all that grease had been a mistake.

She sat there looking at him as if expecting something.

An idea bloomed in his head. “Or…” he began.

“Or?”

“Or I could go get that tennis ball-you know, the one our runner rolled down the tunnel that night? The one that said ‘You’re on’? I could go get that tennis ball, find out what room this guy Booth lives in, and put it on his desk. Then go on down to the tunnels, see what shakes out.”

“Oh, I like that,” she said, a nasty gleam appearing in her eye.

“I could do all that by myself, you know. My ass is already on the skids. No reason for you to burn down, too. I mean, after Bosnia, I know how to do skids.”

She produced her Glock from somewhere beneath the counter and held it up for him to see. “If he did Bagger, we’re gonna have a talk. And maybe an accident.”

The waiter looked up, got wide-eyed when he saw the Glock, and backed hurriedly into the kitchen, closing the door and then the pass-through hatch.

“Put that thing away,” Jim said softly, glancing at the front windows. “We need to call Liz DeWinter. See if she has Julie’s cell number. See if Julie can give us Brother Dyle’s room number.”

Ev and Liz walked back to where Ev had parked his car. Now that it was dark, Ev had offered to give her a ride back up the hill to her house. The night was clear, with almost no sea breeze coming in from the bay. The occasional cars making the turn at King George towards the city docks seemed unusually loud. Ev thought there might be fog later. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell was tolling the hour.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked her when they got to his car.

“Little bit,” she said. “I mean, I can sort of understand where you’re coming from with all that honor code stuff. But a homicide investigation’s the real deal.”

“And the honor code isn’t?”

“So, you keep telling me the Academy isn’t the real world. It’s a synthetic environment, where young people are trained to act like naval officers. Emphasis on the act. I think a lot of this honor code stuff is just a construct. That it doesn’t translate to real life in the real Navy.”

He stood by the door on the driver’s side. “Actually it does,” he said. “Out there in the fleet, an officer’s word is his bond. Some enlisted guys might play cops and robbers with the officers and blow smoke, but an officer never lies except when he’s playing Liar’s Dice at the O Club bar. If they don’t learn that here, they’ve missed the whole point.”

“So you think Julie ought to, what, confess to the Honor Committee? This close to graduation? Take the chance that they might throw her out?”

“That’s what she’s supposed to do. The fact that she comes forward on her own hook would mitigate any punishment, as opposed to what happens if, say, Special Agent Branner goes in and drops her in the shit.”

“You sound like you really are disappointed in her,” Liz said. She was standing on the other side of the car, her hands on the roof.

“I’m very proud that she made it into the Academy, and also made it through.”

“But?”

“But she lied. To you, to NCIS, to me. Because she was afraid, because she wanted to deflect an investigation, because she knew she hadn’t really done anything to Brian Dell, who knows? She lied.”

“So that’s it? Four years, maximum effort, all the shit she had to take as a mid, plus the hassle of being a woman at the Academy? Losing her mother halfway through? She’s wearing academic stars in an engineering program, and she’s been a winner on the swim team? And you’re disappointed?”

“As we say in the fleet, one aw shit can undo ten thousand attaboys. Of course I’m very proud of what she’s accomplished. I’m also very disappointed that she lied. To her credit, I think she is, too.”

Liz was shaking her head. “It’s been what, almost thirty years since you got out?” she said. “And you’re still locked into this honor code thing? Even if it means destroying your own daughter’s future?” Her voice rose, and Ev saw the Marines over at the visitors’ gate look up. After the New York City atrocities, the gate guards had been much more vigilant.

“You either believe in the concept of honor or you don’t, Liz,” he said calmly. “I believed in it when I went through. I think the mids still believe in it. It’s what makes the Academy different and, at the same time, special. It’s why we should keep the place alive, all the chickenshit regs, firsties running plebes, and plebes squaring corners not withstanding. If she joins the fleet and lies, people who will reflexively depend on her word might end up dead. Remember what business these kids are going into. It’s not like being a lawyer, where lies can be tactically necessary.”

“Granted,” Liz said. “But she did not kill Brian Dell, assuming someone did. That’s the important thing here.”

“Then Julie ought to help NCIS, not hide behind your skirts. By the way, I think I remember this Booth. Not personally, but as a student. Fall semester.”

“And is he…strange?”

“If he’s the one I’m thinking about, yes. A little. I mean, he’s a big guy, very intense. Obviously intelligent. But he didn’t do very well in my class. It may be a reading problem.”

“How the hell does someone with a reading disability get in?”

“I pulled his admissions package when he began to slip. As I remember, he came in under one of those special programs. Came from a pretty tough background, but he was a championship swimmer, and he scored off the charts in math and science. I had no idea he knew Julie, other than as a member of the varsity swim team.”

“Did you flunk him?”

“Very nearly. But I also gave him some extra instruction. Some tutoring, if you will. He seemed to be trying, so I let him pass.”

“This night gets better and better,” she said. “You tutored the guy who may have offed Brian Dell. And he’s been intimate with your daughter.”

Ev shook his head. “Until tonight, I knew of no connection between Dyle and Julie, or Midshipman Dell.”

“Did he ever pump you for information about Julie, especially after that weekend at UVA?”

Ev tried to remember if Dyle had ever asked him personal questions. “No, not that I can recall,” he said. “We did talk about the fact that my house is nearby. He asked if I worked out, and I said, yes, and that I walked to and from work. Things like that.”

Liz was quiet for a minute. “Could he have been faking the problem, in order to get close to you?” she asked.

“It’s possible, I guess. Verbally, he was sharp enough. He mostly came across as a gung ho Marine officer candidate. Popped to attention when I’d come into the room, no matter what I told him. ‘Sir, yes, sir’ to everything. I sensed a lot of anxious energy right beneath the surface, which I attributed to his struggle with the material. He’s physically imposing. He’s almost my height, but bigger by half otherwise.”

“How did his classmates react to him?”

“Carefully, now that I think of it. Wary, even. But I can see the Marines loving this type of guy. Hump an eighty-pound pack uphill all day and still be chanting in cadence.”

One of the Marine sentries had stepped across the street to stand at the edge of the parking lot. He asked if everything was all right. Both Liz and Ev said they were fine. Then Ev had an idea. “I’m wondering if we should call the duty officer,” he said. “See if we can get Julie out of Bancroft Hall for a night while NCIS finds this guy and gets a reading on him.”

“You mean take her to your house? Take her home?”

“Yeah. Just until we know something more about what the hell’s going on. Now that I remember Booth, I’m a little worried.”

“I don’t know that Julie would want to do that, not after your reaction tonight. Like you said, that sounded like good-bye.”

“Well, maybe to your house, then? Would you take her in?” He looked over at the lighted outline of Bancroft Hall, which now looked faintly ominous to him. “I just don’t think she should be in Bancroft tonight.”

“Certainly, if she’s willing to come. How would we manage it?”

“I’d get her to sign out for town liberty. She just wouldn’t come back. I think we can sort out any problems with that tomorrow, once we get the commandant into it. I’m assuming NCIS is looking for Dyle right now. There’s a phone in the car. Let me make a call; then you talk to her.”

“Why don’t I make the call and just ask her to get out of there? I don’t think she’ll do it if you ask her.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Let’s just hope Agent Branner and Mr. Hall are working on getting Dyle Booth into an interview room.”

Just after 9:00 P.M., Jim entered the doors on the ground floor of the eighth wing. He went down to the basement, then walked along the corridor of darkened activity rooms until he found the elevator. He pushed the call button and waited. He was dressed in khaki slacks, a short-sleeved shirt, and black shoes. He was also wearing a dark blue Naval Academy windbreaker with the Academy logo and a dark blue ball cap with USNA stenciled on it in gold letters. From a distance, he might look like one of the company officers. As the Academy security officer, he had a right to be in Bancroft Hall, although normally he would have checked in with the watch officers in the Executive Department. As it was, he didn’t intend to spend a lot of time in the eighth wing. The elevator arrived and opened. He stepped in and pressed the button for the fourth floor. The door slowly slid shut and the elderly elevator started up.

He had left Branner outside in the truck, where she could see the window of Booth’s room on the fourth deck. If he actually encountered Booth, he would keep the midshipman in the room and flick the room lights on and off several times. That would be Branner’s signal to come into the building and join him in Booth’s room. She knew the room number. They would then interview him and take him into custody if warranted. But he didn’t expect to encounter Dyle Booth. Unable to raise the lawyer, he had called in to the battalion office and asked if he could speak to Midshipman Booth. After an interminable wait on hold, the mate came back on and said that Booth was signed out for study hall. That meant he could be anywhere in Bancroft Hall or even in an academic building. As a firstie, he would be able to go almost anywhere he wanted. But taps was approaching. He would have to be back in his room at taps, so this was the time to leave the message. Julie had said that Booth did not have a roommate, which was unusual, although not unheard of. The mate had given him the room number.

The door opened on the fourth floor and he stepped out. The corridor was empty. He could hear the familiar sounds of Mother Bancroft during study hour. Some voices were audible, as well as some music and the sounds of a shower going in the room right next to the elevator. Riding the elevator was a firstie privilege. The only other people using the elevators would be the watch officers. He hoped like hell he didn’t run into the real OOD, because that would become truly awkward.

He glanced at the nearest room number and then turned left and headed toward the bay end of the building. The rooms were small and entirely uniform. Most doors were closed. The floor in the hallway was highly polished, and the place smelled of floor wax and cleaning agents. The doors to the men’s bathroom were open and the pungent odor of urinal disinfectant seeped out into the corridor. A plebe came out of his room in his bathrobe, hands rigidly at his sides, eyes in the boat, squaring every corner and walking briskly down the channel, or center of the passageway. He said “Good evening, sir,” as he passed the big man in the windbreaker. If he was curious about Jim, he did not show it. He was obviously trying to get to the head without running into any upperclassmen.

Jim arrived at room number 8424. Eighth wing, fourth floor, room twenty-four. The nameplate read D. BOOTH, 2002. Name and class. There was light showing through the frosted pane in the wooden door. Jim didn’t hesitate. He knocked twice, making sure his Naval Academy ring hit the wooden frame in two solid raps, a familiar sound in Bancroft Hall. To a plebe, it meant jump up into a brace and prepare to sound off, because there was at least a firstie outside, or maybe even a watch officer. He pushed the door open.

There was no one inside. It was a standard room: single-tier bunk on either side, two desks pushed back-to-back in the middle, an aluminum chair placed squarely in front of each one. The beds had been made up with military precision. There were no clothes strewn about, nor any other personal gear adrift. No shoes, clothes, coats, notebooks-nothing. The windows overlooked Lejeune Hall, the physical education center and home to the Marine detachment, appropriately enough. The dark bulk of Dahlgren Hall was visible to the right. He could see Branner’s white face peering up under the streetlights from the parking lot below. He turned off the room lights, waited ten seconds, and turned them back on. That was the second signal: I’m in and there’s no one here. She had wanted to come up, but he’d pointed out that if this worked, Dyle would think it would be just Jim waiting for him. Especially if Booth asked around and was told there had been one stranger on deck earlier, not two.

He looked around the empty room. There was a single PC on the right-hand desk, plus a reading lamp and four textbooks. A large Marine recruiting poster hung over one of the beds, indicating that was the one Booth used. The other bed was tightly made up but had no pillow. The room was spotless and entirely squared away. He opened one closet door. There was a full-dress Marine Corps uniform encased in dry cleaner’s plastic. It was fully rigged, right down to the gleaming second lieutenant’s bars on the shoulders. A curving sword case standing on end to the right of the uniform contained the Mameluke dress sword. He studied the uniform, the same one he’d worn with such pride for six years. Booth must be a really big guy. Better and better. He closed the closet door.

He was tempted to search the room, but he had no authority to do so, nor the training to do it right. In fact, he didn’t really rate being in this room at all. He took the tennis ball out of his pocket and put it squarely on the keyboard of the PC. Then he had an idea. He picked it up again and went to the washbasin. He ran just enough water over the tennis ball to get it wet, but not enough to obliterate what was written on it, YOU’RE ON. Some ink ran into the sink. He smudged out the signature HMC on the basin mirror. Then he went back to the desk and tapped the keyboard. The monitor came to life, giving him a log-on screen. He typed in “You know where” and then put the damp ball back on the keyboard.

The lights had been on when he’d come in. He turned them off as he left the room. If Booth was as situationally aware as Jim expected, that would be yet another warning cue. He walked back down the corridor and pushed the button for the elevator. There were no midshipmen wandering the halls. They must really make them study these days, he thought, then remembered exams. The door opened immediately and he stepped in and pushed the button for the basement.

Three minutes later, he was back in the truck with Branner. “Anyone see you?” she asked.

“One plebe, bound for the head,” he said, snapping on his seat belt. “But I don’t think I registered. I doused the lights when I left, so Booth should know the moment he steps in that someone’s been there.”

“Now what?”

“I’m going to call the chief and see if we can get some backup on the grates. Then I propose to wait here until we see that light go back on.”

“Can the chief do that?” she asked.

“He can’t get extra people out. No time to plan that, and besides, the overtime wouldn’t be authorized, not for this, especially not after what the dant said earlier. But we can get the guys who are out on Yard patrol, and maybe a truck from over at the naval station.”

“You gonna tell him we’re off the books on this one?”

“The chief? Absolutely. No point in getting him in trouble. He’ll probably be the security officer pretty soon.”

She grunted. “You know,” she said, “if Booth is really smart, he’ll chuck that ball out the window and stay home tonight.”

“Absolutely,” Jim said. “But I think he’ll take the challenge. Unless, of course, he tries for Julie Markham. Hopefully, she’s safe in her room, with Hays under the bed somewhere. One assumes the roommate will be cool with that.”

“Melanie Bright? From Cali for nia?”

“Oh. ‘Ya-a,’” he replied. “Hell, they’ll think it’s a game. Better let me get things set up with the chief. There’s a pay phone right over there. I need to stay off the radios right now.”

At eleven o’clock, the bells rang for plebes’ lights-out. They watched as the room lights blinked out in plebe rooms all along the facade of the eighth wing. The chief had understood the new situation right away. Acknowledging that they couldn’t roust out off-duty people, Jim had asked him to have the on-duty Yard cops go to all the Academy grates and block the lower-level steel doors from the outside, beginning now, and then for the cops on the morning shift to unlock them when they came on duty. The chief said he’d take care of it. He asked Jim to call him when he and Branner went down into the tunnels. Jim gave him a general description of Booth, and told him to alert the Yard cops to call central dispatch if they saw a firstie who looked like that loose in the Yard after taps. The chief still had that radio retransmitter set. He said he’d set it up just inside the Mahan Hall grate entrance, and leave two radios with it for them to use. He’d be topside, starting at midnight, with a radio tied to that frequency. They knew Booth could listen to that frequency, but it was better than nothing, and Booth probably did not have jamming equipment.

“That’s mighty good of you, Chief,” Jim had said. “But that’s getting directly involved. I mean you on the radio.”

“What radio?” the chief had replied blandly.

Jim deliberately had not told the chief about the storm drain entrance on the seawall. Booth was possibly using some as-yet-unknown entrance to the old Fort Severn magazine rooms, but there was an equal chance he’d use that big storm drain tunnel. The grating he’d seen was at least five feet in diameter. Even someone Booth’s size could move quickly up that big pipe and into the main utility tunnels, and it wasn’t as if there would be sewage or anything truly unpleasant in the storm drain.

As they waited in the truck to see if Booth would return to his room, Jim asked Branner why she was risking her job.

“Because you need some adult supervision?” she asked.

He sighed and she laughed. “Okay,” she said. “Try this. I’m the supervisor of the Naval Academy NCIS office. It’s my supervisory judgment that there’s new and important evidence regarding what happened to Special Agent Thompson. Nothing to do with Midshipman Dell, of course.”

“Ah.”

“So I’m not disobeying orders here so much as exercising initiative. About Bagger. Not Dell.”

“It sounds good,” he said doubtfully.

“Look,” she said. “We catch Booth in the tunnels tonight, we’ll have enough to open the whole thing back up, SecNav or no SecNav. Especially if I can have five minutes alone with him.”

“Just by catching him down there?”

“We have the unexplained Dell death, linked by Markham to Booth. We have the missing college girl, who went into the tunnels, most probably with Booth. We have Bagger’s fatal assault case, plus some other assault cases over in town, linked to some guy in vampire drag-whom you saw in the tunnels. We have various destruction derbies down there since you’ve been looking for this guy, linked to a tag with a shark logo. Booth calls himself ‘the Shark’ on the Navy swim team.”

“Okay, so lots of circumstantial. But if Booth remains silent, we’ve got jack, right?”

She gave him a wolfish smile. “Like I said, Mr. Naval Academy Security Officer, I’m along to provide some adult supervision. By now, Booth has probably figured out that you know more than you should. And you’ve directly challenged him to meet you in the tunnels. If he’s been watching Markham, and I think he watches pretty good, he’s probably aware that she bolted out to her lawyer’s office earlier today. He’ll be more than prepared to meet you down there. One-on-one denotes personal combat, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely. Especially to a Marine recon wanna-be.”

“Okay, then. It’s probably going to get interesting down there-that’s more his turf than ours. What he doesn’t know is that I’m going to be down there. You two get together, you need to talk a little trash, provoke him into some boasting. Something that I can hear. I’m the arresting officer here. That’ll do it.”

He just looked at her for a moment. “He won’t do that unless I’m in the corner,” he said.

She smiled at him. “‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright,’” she said.

“Bleated the goat,” he replied. “The one tied to the stake.”

“Got any better ideas? Like you said, it’s not like we have a bag full of evidence here. Tell you what: As soon as he admits doing Bagger, I’ll just cap his ass, and then it’ll be just us chickens testifying at an inquest about an accidental shooting. That would get the balance of justice about right.”

“C’mon.” He laughed. “You can’t just go shooting the guy.”

“Watch me. In my book, that’s better than having some Communist defense lawyer get him off.”

He shook his head. Wyatt Branner at the O.K. Corral. She probably would do it, too. He glanced up. The light was on in Booth’s room.

“Yo, Houston,” he said, switching on the engine. “I believe we have contact.”

They drove to the back of Mahan Hall and parked the truck in the Alumni Hall parking lot. The chief materialized out of the darkness as they approached the grate.

“Decided to hang around and give you these personally,” he said, handing over the radios. “Plus a message-from a Mr. Harry Chang?”

Branner stepped forward. “That will be for me,” she said.

“Yeah, sounded like it. Mr. Chang was in a bad mood. Says he thinks you and my boss here are up to some wild-haired shit, to use his words. Says he has it on best authority that Mr. Hall has been told to cease and desist in regards to the Dell case, and that you have been similarly so instructed. Asked me to pass that along, should I happen to see you out and about the Yard.”

“And you said?”

“I said that I didn’t know anything about any police operations, and if I didn’t know anything, there weren’t any. That I had no idea where either of you was, but if you were together, it was probably not business.”

Jim smiled in the darkness, especially when he saw Branner’s expression.

“Anyways, he also said there were some people coming down tomorrow morning from headquarters to…lessee, this guy used a lot of code. Oh, yeah, he said there were some people coming down to ‘collate the available evidence, compile the final official report, and to review some recent management concepts with Special Agent Branner.’”

“Tomorrow morning?” Branner asked. “Definitely not tonight?”

“That’s what the man said,” the chief replied. “The retransmitter is in place in the main tunnel. I got guys physically securing all the grates from the outside. You want me to seal the one over on the Johnnie campus?”

“Can you?”

“Leave it to me. You’re trying to catch this vampire runner, right?”

“Right. We think we know who he is.”

“Why tonight?”

“Mr. Hall left him a little invitation,” Branner said. “Plus, another mid has given us reason to believe this guy had something to do with the Dell kid’s flying lesson.”

“Man, oh, man. This is definitely not my father’s Naval Academy.”

“Chief, I need one more favor,” Jim said. “Will this radio reach all the way over to the public works center?”

“Sure,” the chief said. “That’s a ten-watt transmitter.”

“I need you to go there, tell the utility watch officer that we’re in the tunnels, and listen for a code word: lights-out. This guy has had a couple years to put his own surveillance network up, and I think he gets electrical power for it by tapping into local lighting circuits. If I speak that code word, I need all the juice in the tunnels turned off. When I say, ‘lights on,’ turn it all back on, okay?”

“I can handle that,” the chief said. “You going along, Special Agent?”

“Wouldn’t miss it, Chief,” she said, patting the bulge where the Glock lived.

“Watch out using that thing down in the tunnels, Special Agent. That’s one big ricochet chamber.”

“Only if I miss his criminal ass, Chief,” she said with a sniff.

The chief gave her a two-finger salute and they went down the steps and through the steel door. They heard the chief lock it behind them, then brace the door with a metal bar. It was five minutes to midnight.

Ev and Liz picked Julie up in front of Dahlgren Hall. She carried a small overnight bag. She got in the backseat without a word. Tommy Hays had walked her out to the car. He waved and she waved back as Ev made a left turn and drove up the circular drive in front of the chapel.

“Any problem signing out?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

Ev looked sideways at Liz, who arched her eyebrows as if to say, Told you so. He went out the Maryland Avenue gate and drove up to State Circle, where he let them out by the gate to Liz’s house. He tried to think of something to say to Julie, but he couldn’t come up with anything, so he told Liz he’d be at home for the rest of the evening. She nodded and took Julie through the iron gates.

As if I had anywhere else to go, he thought as he circled around the old Weems estate and headed back down in front of the St. John’s College campus. There were a few students out and about among the giant old trees on the front lawns. He stopped to let two oddly dressed girls cross the street. They looked like they were going to a Halloween costume party. Okay, he thought, so Julie’s pissed off at me. And at herself, because now the onus is on her to solve the honor problem. Ev wondered if the NCIS team had picked up Dyle Booth yet.

He tried to visualize Julie dating a guy like Dyle Booth but couldn’t quite do it. They had nothing in common except the swimming. Julie came from a very traditional family background; Booth from the white fringes of a Baltimore ghetto. Liz might have been right: The acerbic way Dyle could verbalize things didn’t square with a verbal skills problem. Had the kid been manipulating him in order to get at Julie?

Ev parked the car and got out. The night was very still now, with enough humidity in the air to give nearby lights a soft penumbra. Not quite fog yet, but soon, he thought. He went up to the darkened house and let himself in. He turned on the porch lights behind him, then turned them off. No point in porch lights-no one was coming to see him tonight. He walked down the darkened hall to the kitchen, through whose windows he could see the dock lights, which came on automatically at dusk. The furniture was all gray in the dim light. He stood at the kitchen sink and considered what he’d done this evening: alienated his daughter, and very possibly Liz as well. Could he have phrased it differently? Been more diplomatic? Explained it to Liz first, and not said anything to Julie? Yes.

He stared unseeing though the windows, knowing that it was dumb to be just standing here in the dark. He wanted to call Liz, but that wasn’t on, not tonight. He found himself wondering what else he didn’t know about his daughter. He turned on a light, fixed himself a snifter of scotch, and then went down to the dock to sit by the water. The highly varnished bottom of his upturned scull glistened in the dock lights.