Darkside

2

Everett Markham, full professor of international law and diplomacy in the Political Science Department, Division of Humanities and Social Studies, United States Naval Academy, banged his head on an open cupboard door and dropped his coffee mug, all in one graceful move. He swore as he batted the offending door shut, rubbed his head, and groped around the darkened kitchen floor for the mug, which, fortunately, had been empty. He couldn’t find it.

This is what it’s like to turn fifty, he thought. Need coffee in the morning just to get stereo vision, and every supposedly inanimate object in the house knows it and lies in wait for you. Or, you could turn on the damned light, he said to himself. But that would hurt my caffeine-deprived eyes. He realized he was doing this a lot these days, talking to himself, even holding some fairly detailed conversations in his head on the most absolutely inane topics. He gave up, turned on the kitchen lights, opened one and then the other eye, and spied the mug lurking next to the center island. He managed to plug in the tiny Krups coffeemaker without executing himself, rubbed the back of his head again, and went out to the front porch to see where the village idiot had thrown his Washington Post this time.

Ev Markham was a widower. He lived alone in a large two-story house overlooking the head of Sayers Creek, which was an inlet of the Severn River just upstream of the Naval Academy. The house had belonged to his parents, and he’d grown up in Annapolis, in the shadow of the Academy. Like more than a few such kids, Ev had been mesmerized from an early age by the proud ranks of midshipmen bedecked in blue and gold, the midweek parades, the boom of the saluting guns, the thunderous Army-Navy game pep rallies, choral recitals in the cathedral-like chapel at Christmas-time, and those big mysterious gray ships anchored from time to time out in the bay. His father, who had served in the Navy during World War II, had been a doctor with good political connections in both the capital and in the Yard, and he’d eased the way for an appointment for Ev, who had graduated from the Academy himself in 1973.

He retrieved the plastic-wrapped newspaper out of an injured camellia bush, frowned at the broken branches, summoned visions of retribution, and then went back into the house. Maybe if he put up a piece of piano wire across the sidewalk, say about neck-high, Einstein might slow down long enough to put the paper somewhere near the front porch. But then he remembered that the paperboy was no longer a boy on a bike, but an elderly Korean gentleman driving a little Japanese pickup truck. And besides, there never had been sidewalks. He plodded back to the kitchen, poured a mug of coffee-into the cup this time-and went out onto the back porch, which overlooked two hundred feet of lawn and trees descending to the creek. Two sincerely ambitious Yuppies were straining at their oars as they sculled out from the other side in their fancy singles. The water was perfectly still, and they cut through the foot-high mist like competing phantoms under power.

His lawyer and best friend, Worth Battle, harped incessantly on the subject of Ev’s living alone in a house so full of family memories. Worth also kept trying to set him up with lady friends, but, with the possible exception of one really nice lawyer, none of them had raised even a spark of interest. He smiled at the thought of going through life with a name like Worth Battle. Back when they had been plebe-year roommates at the Naval Academy, Ev had appreciated all the hell his roomie caught for having such a name, because it deflected a lot of fire from himself. As early as plebe summer, they had speculated that one day Worth would have to become a lawyer, if only to get even.

The problem was, Ev loved the old house. He lived in it mortgage-free, and now, with five wooded acres directly overlooking Sayers Creek and within healthy walking distance of the Academy and the state capitol, it was worth a small fortune. But more than that, he’d grown up here. It was the only home he’d ever had. It was also the only home his daughter, Julie, had ever known, and during the past four years, it had allowed him to see much more of her than did most parents of midshipmen. It was a place she could bring her friends and classmates, a place where they could act like normal college kids once in awhile instead of spit-and-polish tin sailors. But since his wife, Joanne, had died, he’d seen less of Julie than he’d have liked. And when she graduated in a few weeks, he’d see nothing of her except for the occasional Christmas leave, as she dropped into that same naval aviation pipe he’d been in for so long. The irony did not escape him. Pretty soon, there’d be nothing but memories here. Good ones and not so good ones. Then he might actually have to decide.

The phone rang. It was Julie. Midshipman First Class Julie Markham, United States Naval Academy, he reminded himself. Soon to be Ensign Julie Markham, United States Naval Reserve.

“Dad!” she said breathlessly, scattering his ruminations with her energy. “Have you heard?”

“Heard what, Jules?” he asked patiently. Julie seemed to go through life at full burner lately, as commissioning day approached.

“A plebe. Fell. Or jumped. Off the eighth wing’s roof. Into the road between King Hall and Mitscher Hall. Mega-gross. Like, fire-hose city.”

“Thanks for sharing, Julie,” he said, quickly blanking out the gory image. He’d seen the aftermath of a plane captain falling eighty-four feet from the flight deck of a carrier onto the pier below, courtesy of a jet engine turnup. “What do you mean, fell or jumped?”

“Oh, you know. Dark Side is saying that of course he fell; the word in the Brigade is that he jumped.”

“You’re going to have to lose that ‘Dark Side’ business once you get out there in the fleet, Julie. Your senior officers won’t appreciate that stuff.”

“And they do something about it, from what I’ve been told, which is, of course, why they’re called the Dark Side.”

“Yeah, but think about this: You go naval air, you’re looking at almost a ten-year obligated service. By then, you’ll be up for light commander. How do you make the transition to O-four if you’ve been calling everyone who’s an O-four or above the Dark Side?”

“Oh, Da-ad,” she said. “Ten years? That’s eons from now. Hey, I gotta run-it’s two-minute chow call.”

“Rock and roll,” he said, but she was already gone. He hung up the phone. It was almost amusing, he thought, how pervasively the fleet junior officer culture infected the Brigade, especially the seniors, or firsties. After the naval aviation Tailhook scandals of the early nineties, many junior aviators felt they had been made scapegoats for incidents to which a nonzero number of very senior officers had also been party. Some of these senior officers had been only too willing to offer up an unlimited number of JO careers if that meant they could save theirs from the ensuing feminazi witch-hunts. The JOs had secretly begun calling any officer over the rank of lieutenant “the Dark Side,” with a cultural nod to Darth Vader of the Star Wars films. When this term filtered up to the senior officers, there were immediate and heavy-handed back-channel thunderations, which, of course, only served to cement the appellation.

He finished his coffee and went upstairs to get ready for work. His first class today was at ten o’clock, so there was plenty of time. One of the bennies of being a full prof. But maybe too much time, because as he entered the bedroom, he was struck again by how quiet the damned house was. It didn’t even have the decency to creak and groan, like any self-respecting fifty-year-old house should. He felt the familiar flush of desperate loneliness that seemed all too ready to overwhelm him at moments like this. He took a deep breath and willed it away.

She was gone.

That’s all, just gone. Just gone. And there was nothing he could do. He had gone through his entire life asserting control over himself and his circumstances. But when that state trooper had come to the door, stone-faced, rain-soaked hat in hand, Ev had known in an instant that those days of even keels and steady, visible purpose had just been hit by a large torpedo. Just like Joanne. Who was just-gone.

They had had the life they’d had. All the memories were banked, the good ones gaining ground, the not so good ones fading like old newsprint, visible if you really wanted to see it, but disappearing if you were willing to leave it in a drawer somewhere for long enough.

You do this one day at a time, he told himself. Just like the twelve-steppers down at AA. You concentrate on what you’re going to say at the ten o’clock seminar. You focus on doing the next thing-shower, shave, get dressed. He swallowed hard as he stood there in the bedroom. He knew all the standard nostrums by heart, could hear all his friends reciting them so sincerely and earnestly. Meaning well. Trying to help. Breathing silent sighs of relief that it hadn’t happened to them.

He couldn’t help wanting to remind some of them.

He looked at himself in the full-length mirror hanging on the bathroom door. Just over six feet, black hair-well, mostly black-a narrow, lean face with intense brown eyes, a crooked nose, courtesy of an unruly canopy, and more lines than had been there the last time he’d looked. He’d managed to keep himself fit and trim, which, given the physical fitness culture of the Academy, was unremarkable. But the lines were deeper and the shadows under his eyes more pronounced. Funny how living alone changed things, and how the body kept score.

He sighed. Damned house was ambushing him again. Maybe Worth was right. The day after Julie threw her hat in the air at graduation was going to be emotional for them both. The day after that, once she had driven away to Pensacola and her new life, was going to be a genuine bitch.

“But right now,” he said out loud, “it’s shower time.”

That’s right, it’s me. Aren’t you glad? Sure you are. I’ve just been walking down the passageway, yelling at the chow-callers to keep their eyes in the boat, and, just maybe, they won’t attract my attention. They don’t want to attract my attention, because today I’m Psycho-Shark, man-killer, man-eater.

I love to look at all the pretty plebes, the live ones. Standing rigidly at attention next to the upperclassmen’s rooms, clamoring like the sheep they are, counting down the minutes until morning meal formation. As if the superior beings inside the rooms didn’t know what time it was. “Sir! There are now three minutes until morning meal formation! The menu for this morning is…” Seriously dumb!

There was one who didn’t get the word about me. I gave him the Look. Let my eyes go blank, opened my mouth just a little, showed all my teeth, slowed my stride fractionally, made it look like I was turning in his direction, just like a big tiger shark, perusing prey, easing past the target, then the sly turn, the effortless dip and bank of pectorals. I love it when their voices pitch up a note or two as they continue to shout out the required formula while pretending-no, hoping, praying-I’m not coming back to them.

They know, the plebes. They know about me, even if a lot of my so-called classmates don’t. It’s the nature of prey to recognize a predator, you see. And I am, by God, a predator. A top predator, in every sense. They get a come-around to my room, they don’t sleep the night before. Especially the girls.

There’s one girl they call Bee-bee, the fat girl. Bee-bee for Butterball. All quivering chins and heaving bosoms under that flushed face. Trying desperately not to acknowledge that I’m walking past. I can smell the sweat on her from twenty feet away-we can do that, you know. We have a truly excellent sense of smell. All those tiny, exquisitely tuned dermal receptors. It’s a chemical thing. Just kidding, of course. But sharks can do that, so I assume the profile as much as I can. For Bee-bee, I change my sequence. Just a little. Slow down, turn my head, oh so casually in her direction, stare down at her-belt buckle, yes, and listen to her squeak. What does she think I’m looking at, her crotch? Not with that fat roll hanging over her belt, I’m not.

But you know what? I can smell her fear. She’s not going to make it here. The Dark Side hates fat midshipmen. As well they should. Fat people are lazy, unmotivated. Natural prey, by definition. As I’ve always said, the girls can stay, but only if you remain sleek and strong.

I prowl every day. My grand passage to formation. I leave my room with just less than two minutes to get down the ladder to the zero deck and out onto the formation yard. I have it timed, you see. Right to the second. After almost four years of this bullshit, any competent firstie does. That’s how I make it look so effortless, arriving at the edge of the formation just as the bells ring, always supremely casual, totally nonchalant, just like a big shark rising from somewhere down in the deep gloom, appearing miraculously alongside and slightly below a school of underclassmen. Well, what the hell, it is morning meal formation. You know, chow time? Heh-heh.

And I love it when the guys on the team call me the Shark! Let’s face it, when it comes to men’s freestyle, I AM the team. Six three in my dripping feet, 210 pounds of spring steel, and shaped like a humanoid manta ray, only I’m faster, much faster. I’m the monster of the freestyle. Fast enough that I actually have time to look sideways and lay dead eyes on anyone who can keep up with me. It’s so cool: I give him the Look, show those teeth, watch him stub his stroke for a second or two, or screw up his breathing when he realizes I’m not breathing and I’m still staring right at him. And then I’m gone, accelerating without seeming to change anything. I’ve heard the norms talking, in the locker room head afterward. “Fucker just stopped taking air, man. Looked at me like I was meat, like he was gonna slip under the lane divider and, like, fucking bite, man. Freaked my ass out.”

It’s my teeth. I can’t help it. I have really big teeth. One time before a meet, I borrowed some black nail polish from one of my Goth moths and painted my teeth to look like points. Final heat, there was this guy, thought he was pretty good, grinned at me when he realized he could stay with Navy’s monster right through the final turn. Then I gave him the Look, and a second later, exactly one stroke later, I showed the teeth. Poor baby did a guppy mouth. Tried to swallow the pool. Made him heavy, I suppose. Shit happens. He was lucky his timer saw him go down. I never saw him, of course. I was too busy winning. I did see the bubble, now that I think of it. Big one, too.

The best part of formation time is when the plebes, all finished with their chow calls, come chopping down the center of the passageway, hands rigid at their sides, eyes in the boat, yes, sir, knowing within a few seconds what time it is, but having to give way to the upperclassmen, because that’s how it works here at Canoe U. They had sixty, now fifty seconds to get down the stairwell-that’s ladder to you, plebe-dweeb-and into ranks. We don’t obstruct them on purpose, although it does happen. And, of course, you bump into me and you get an automatic come-around. On the other hand, if they aren’t in formation by the time the formation bell rings, they’re down on the demerit pad anyway. Can’t win, if you’re a plebe, can you? No, you can’t. That’s the beauty of the system. Make it hopeless, see what they do, see who gives up, who doesn’t, and then help the strong ones figure it out. To recognize the system, and, better yet, how to beat the system.

That’s how I’ve done it, only I was doing it long before I got to this place. Beating the system. Every place I’ve been, since I was a little kid, there’s always been a system. Whether in Juvie Hall, the foster homes, the parochial school, there’s always been a system. If you truly want to rule, all you have to do is first recognize the system, then beat it by appearing to play by its rules while taking what you want. And you know what? The people who run the system are usually so damned dumb, they can’t see you doing it. This place is no different in that regard. They’ve got all these chickenshit rules, so you focus on those rules. Shine your shoes, polish your brass, keep your room sharp, bounce that dime off the bedspread, man. Study what they tell you to study, excel at all things athletic, stand tall, speak loud, keep your hair short, your body pumped, your abs ripped, and, man, you will be a star. Just like me. Oh, you might not have many friends, but, hell, I didn’t come here for friends. I came here to get those wings of gold and that great big Mameluke sword.

See, you don’t need friends to select Marine aviation; you only need a certain percentage of your class to stand lower than you do. It’s like if you and I were being chased by a big bad bear-I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you. So my classmates don’t like me. Big deal. But they sure as hell know who I am. And the Dark Side, especially the Marines? Hell, they love me. Set me up at attention in a set of tropical whites, take my picture while I’m bellowing out an order, I’m Poster Boy.

Well, it’s going on class time. Just a couple more weeks and we get to flee this place. I finally get to join my mighty Corps, and, of course, learn all about a new system. They’ll have one. And being Marines, it’ll be a pretty simple system. Not simple as in dumb, but simple as in clear, pure, strong. But I’ll play it and beat it, too. Piece of cake. Easy as slurping down the weekly shit-on-a-shingle breakfast in King Hall. Hope they hose off the plaza over there before noon meal. I saw a fire truck, but there’s been no fire that I know about. Something messy on the plaza, I hear. Or was it someone? A plebe, maybe? Hope so-there’re too many of them.

Just before noon, Ev Markham stood on the front steps outside Sampson Hall, wishing he could have a cigarette. He’d quit smoking when he’d left carrier aviation, but the desire for just one had never been truly extinguished. It was a perfect spring day in Annapolis, with clear blue skies and a vigorous sea breeze coming in off the bay. The trees were in bloom, the lawns were coming green again after the wintry depredations of dark ages, and the Severn River was positively sparkling. The wedge of Chesapeake Bay he could see from Sampson was a vast sheet of silver punctuated by fishing boats and the seemingly motionless silhouette of a black-hulled tanker pushing its way up to Baltimore. It was no wonder the visiting West Point cadets, whose fortresslike academy up on the Hudson was still ice-bound in the early spring, called their rivals’ school in Annapolis “the Country Club.”

The last midshipmen were exiting the granite-covered academic building, hustling back to Bancroft for noon meal formation, throwing a chorus of obligatory “Morning, sir” at him as they trotted by. He was a popular-enough professor, and it didn’t hurt that he taught a subject that was considered non-life-threatening, as compared to, say, advanced organic chemistry. He was finishing his imaginary cigarette and admiring the big houses on the cliffs across the Severn River when Dolly Benson, the Political Science Department’s secretary, stuck her head out one of the massive bronze doors and called him in for an urgent phone call from his daughter. Surprised, he followed her back to the departmental offices. A call from his daughter at this time of day, with noon meal formation bells about to ring, was unusual. The Naval Academy was a place of rigid routines. Any break in that routine usually meant trouble.

“Yeah, Julie. What’s up?”

“Dad, I think I’ve got a problem. My company officer came to our room and told me to get into Class-A’s and report to the commandant’s office.”

“Whoa. Why?”

“I have no idea. I don’t think Lieutenant Tarrens does, either. He just said to get up there ASAP. What should I do?”

“Get up there ASAP. And you have no idea of what this is about? Academic? Conduct?”

“No, Dad,” Julie said in a mildly exasperated voice. Rightfully so, too. Julie stood in the top 20 percent of her class academically and had never had a significant conduct demerits problem.

“Well, then, go find out. If you haven’t done anything wrong, just go see the Man. He doesn’t bite.”

“That something you know, Dad?” she asked, but her normal bantering tone wasn’t there. He realized Julie was scared. He also knew that Captain Robbins, the commandant of midshipmen and a recent flag officer selectee, was not exactly a warm and fuzzy kind of guy.

“Listen, Jules: The commandant is all about business. Whatever it is, he’ll be professional about it. However, if you think you’re being accused of something, stop talking and call me right away. On my cell number. And before thirteen hundred, okay? I’ve got a department staff meeting then. Now hustle your bustle.”

“I guess. Shit. I’m going to miss lunch.”

He could hear the formation bells ringing out in the halls. “I believe you already have. Get going. And call me back.”

He hung up and stood there for a moment. He was grateful that the departmental office complex was empty. Everyone else, including Dolly now, had gone somewhere, either for lunch or to work out. There were individual offices for the department chair, who was a Navy captain, and for each full professor. There was also a conference room, and some smaller shared offices for newer faculty and visitors. There were no students hanging around, either. Unlike students at a civilian college, midshipmen had their time strictly regulated: They were in Bancroft Hall, out on the athletic fields, or in class in one of the academic buildings. Midshipmen rarely spent time lingering around the departmental offices.

He walked over to his own office to make sure his cell phone was on, wondering what the hell this was all about. The commandant of midshipmen’s office was in Bancroft Hall itself. He and his deputy, Captain Rogers, directly oversaw every aspect of the midshipmen’s daily life through a chain of command comprised of commissioned officers who were designated battalion and company officers. The four thousand midshipmen were assigned to six battalions of five companies each. Having been a midshipman, Ev knew that a summons to the commandant’s office was trouble, plain and simple. With her high academic standing and her athletic achievements as a competitive swimmer, Julie was one of the stars of her class, so this wasn’t likely to be about a conduct offense. Another large-scale cheating episode, perhaps? God, he hoped not. The Academy didn’t need another one of those, especially after all the ongoing controversy over the ethics and honor courses.

Forty-five minutes later, his suspicions were confirmed. Julie called in on his regular number. She asked in a wooden, stilted voice if he could come over to Bancroft Hall.

“Certainly,” he said, not liking her tone of voice. “But what’s going on?”

“Can’t talk,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’ll meet you in the rotunda. We can talk there.”

“Five minutes,” he said, and hung up. He left a note for Dolly that he had been called away on an urgent personal matter and would be late for the departmental meeting. Then he grabbed his suit coat and hustled out the door.

Julie was waiting for him in the spacious main entrance to Bancroft Hall, the eight-wing, five-storied marble and granite Beaux Arts dormitory complex that was home to the nearly four thousand midshipmen composing the Brigade. She was standing to one side of the ornate marble-floored entrance, looking small beneath the massive naval murals lining the cavernous rotunda. He felt a small pang in his heart when he looked at his daughter: Julie looked so much like her mother-medium height, dark-haired, pretty, and bright-eyed, except that right now she wasn’t so bright-eyed. Her face was rigid with what looked to him like massive embarrassment. Fifty feet above her head was a twenty-foot-wide color mural depicting battleships under air attack in World War II. It somehow seemed appropriate.

He went to her and saw that she was struggling to contain tears. A couple of passing midshipmen, youngsters, with a single anchor insignia on their shirt collars and arms laden with books, glanced at him in his civilian suit and tie but kept going. Being sophomores, they wouldn’t necessarily know he was faculty, so he looked like what he was: a visiting father, here to talk to his daughter. A freestanding wooden privacy partition masked the side hallways leading back into the Brigade hallways. He saw a lieutenant he did not recognize standing next to the executive corridor partition, watching them. Probably someone from the Executive Department. Given the weird acoustics of the rotunda, he was close enough to eavesdrop.

“Want to go somewhere?” he asked softly, eyeing the watching officer.

“Can’t,” she said through clamped jaws. “They say I have to meet some people from NCIS in a few minutes.”

That stopped him. NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Emphasis on the word Criminal. “NCIS? What the hell, Julie?”

She looked right at him, keeping her back to the lieutenant and her voice low. “That plebe who jumped this morning? They’re saying it had something to do with me. The commandant just put me through some kind of interrogation. It’s almost like they think I’m responsible. You know, for what he did.”

“Good Lord. Did you even know him?”

“Only sort of,” she said. “I mean, he’s a plebe. Was a plebe, I guess.” She turned and glared pointedly at the lieutenant. The young officer finally stepped back behind the partition to give them some privacy. That was his Julie: not one to take crap from anybody.

“Why do they think that?”

She shrugged. “They say there’s something that ties him to me.”

“Like…”

“The dant wouldn’t say. It was like ‘We’ll ask the questions; you answer.’”

He started to say something but stopped. The word had gone through the entire Academy like quicksilver before first-period classes. A plebe named William Brian Dell was dead, the victim of a fall from the roof of the eighth wing. And now there was something that tied the victim to Julie?

“I don’t know what’s been going on since the incident,” she said. “But they sent for me just before I called you. The dant just sat there. Captain Rogers did the talking. Asked if I knew him. I did remember him from plebe summer detail. His name was Dell. Like the computer company? He was in our batt. Had him come around a few times, but then, I don’t know, I quit running him. He seemed to be flailing. I didn’t think he’d last.”

Julie had been a member of the prestigious plebe summer detail, a small cadre of rising seniors who ran the seven-week summer indoctrination program for the incoming class of plebes. The objective of plebe summer was to turn civilians into midshipmen. It was an exhausting regimen, during which the plebes got a taste of what was coming when the full Brigade returned from its summer cruise. But only a taste-the reality was worse. Up at West Point, they called their version of it “Beast Barracks.”

“So what-you were helping him?”

She turned away for a moment. “When I called you this morning, I didn’t know it was Dell. Who jumped, I mean. Anyway, they started in asking if I knew Midshipman Fourth Class Dell. I told them, yes, I did. Then they told me he was the one who fell. They keep saying ‘fell.’”

“They probably don’t know yet, Julie. They’re going to have to do an investigation.”

“They seemed pretty insistent that he fell, like they’d heard the scuttlebutt going around and were laying down the party line. You know, play down any suicide angle. But then-”

She stopped. The lieutenant was back.

“So they’re bringing in NCIS?” he asked. “Are they accusing you of something?”

“I don’t know. That’s what’s pissing me off. And the dant wasn’t exactly being friendly. You know, what’s happened has to be someone’s fault, because of course it’s going to embarrass the Academy. But NCIS? Should I have a lawyer or something?”

Ev hesitated. Whenever a Navy service member was seriously injured or killed while on active duty, it was standard procedure for his command to initiate a so-called line-of-duty investigation. NCIS normally would not be brought in unless the authority convening the investigation thought that the incident was the result of criminal or suspicious acts.

“And they won’t tell you what this so-called tie is between you and Dell?”

“No. I asked. They said that was privileged information for the moment.”

Ev didn’t like the sound of that. The lieutenant was signaling something to Julie. As Ev turned to see what was going on, the commandant himself appeared and headed toward them. Ev felt Julie stiffen to attention by his side.

Jim Hall perched on the edge of the conference room table, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand. He was trying not to stare at the female NCIS agent’s legs, but it was difficult-she was sitting rather carelessly in the armchair at the head of the conference table while she read the report from the ER, and the view was expansive. Her partner, a young-looking black guy, who was sitting in one of the side chairs, saw Jim peeking and grinned at him. What the hell, Jim thought. She has great legs, even if she is a cop. Correction: special agent. As in Special Agent Branner. No first name, apparently. Branner was the head of the Academy’s local NCIS office. She shook her head and looked up.

“Panties? This kid was wearing panties?” she said. Her voice was throaty, as if she might have been a smoker at one time.

“So it would seem,” Jim said. “There was a Naval Academy laundry mark. We scanned the lists and found out the underwear belongs to a firstie, one Midshipman Julie Markham. That’s the one you’re interviewing in a few minutes.”

Branner looked over with raised eyebrows at her partner, Special Agent Walter Thompson, who shrugged elaborately. Branner was a handsome woman in her thirties. If a bit of a hard case, Jim thought. Attractive face, bright red hair, wide-shouldered, athletic upper body, slim-hipped, and, of course, those racing wheels decked out in some shiny beige stockings. But an all-business set to her expression. He’d met this kind before, in the Marine Corps, women who knew they were attractive but, by God, were not going to allow that to interfere with their male counterparts taking them seriously. Except there she was, flashing the world like a pro. She looked back down at the report. If she was aware that he was looking her over, she gave no indication. And attractive women are always aware, he reminded himself.

“And the DOA? This Midshipman Dell?” she asked, flipping through the three pages of the report as if the answer would leap out at her. “What do you have on him?”

It was Jim’s turn to shrug. “Plebe. We’ve sent for his admissions file, but they have to retrieve it from some records warehouse over in Baltimore. Full name is William Brian Dell. His roommate wasn’t too much help this morning-still pretty shook-up. His company officer, one Lieutenant Gates, will be up here shortly, along with Dell’s squad leader, the roommate, and his company commander.”

“Parents?”

“Parents live in Norfolk. His father is retired Navy enlisted. His stepmother has severe emphysema, confined to home care. Oxygen-bottle on wheels situation. Dell was his father’s child by a first wife. She has not been located. The father and stepmother were notified in person at ten-thirty this morning by a CACO.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, have a nice day. Somewhat rougher for the kid, of course.”

“No take on suicide or accident?” she asked.

“That’s all yours to investigate, Special Agent,” Jim said. “Although the dant probably has some preferences on that matter.”

She gave him a quick look to see if he was being facetious about her being a special agent. She apparently decided he was not, but she did rearrange her skirt. Slowly, though. Lady knows exactly what she’s doing, he decided. “But of course the dant wouldn’t think of indulging in any undue command influence over your investigation,” Jim continued.

“Much,” she said, and they all smiled. Everyone knew that a ruling of accident rather than suicide would be better for the Academy’s image. Marginally better, but better. Midshipmen at Annapolis did not go around committing suicide, and certainly not on Capt. D. Telfer Robbins’s watch.

Branner slid the report over to Thompson and got up to refill her coffee cup. Jim had scanned the report, which contained a brief medical description of Dell’s injuries and a preliminary cause of death determination: massive trauma due to sudden impact with lots and lots of concrete. No surprises there. Initial toxicology screen negative for alcohol or drugs. Further analysis pending autopsy. DOA. No effort made to resuscitate. Got that right, Jim thought, remembering the strangely diminished, almost two-dimensional corpse, out of which an amazing volume of fluids had leaked.

The commandant had made it clear out in front of the mess hall that he wanted this matter to be labeled an accident until proven otherwise, and that no one, and he did mean no one, was to speak to the media except the Academy’s own Public Affairs spokespersons. Jim had pointed out that there were civilian police and EMTs already involved, but Robbins simply told him to take care of that problem himself. Jim dutifully instructed Lieutenant Gates, the plebe’s company officer, who had been throwing up in the bushes, to seal Dell’s room and to make arrangements for the roommate to move in with someone else for the time being. He had then spoken quietly to the EMTs, relaying the commandant’s request for discretion. He hadn’t bothered with the Annapolis cops, who would have been insulted. The EMTs had taken the body over to the Anne Arundel County morgue for the required autopsy.

Branner returned to the table, ran her fingers through her hair, and sat down with her knees primly together this time. Jim was almost disappointed.

“By rights, he should have gone to Bethesda,” she said. “This is a federal case.”

Jim shrugged again. “I should think an autopsy is an autopsy,” he said. “The city cops and EMTs got there first, so that’s the gutting table he went to. You want to object, get him moved?”

Branner shook her head. “Not now. It’s just that we’d control the reporting better if he were in Navy channels. But, what the hell, they know what killed him.”

“So it would seem. You guys ready for Midshipman Markham?” Jim asked.

Branner nodded. “Midshipmen in panties,” she muttered.

“Actually, this one ought to be wearing panties,” Jim said. Just like you always should, he thought.

Branner just looked at him. “Okay, Mr. Hall.” She sighed. “Let’s talk to Midshipman Markham.”

“Professor Markham, good morning,” Captain Robbins said. He didn’t offer to shake hands, and his expression wasn’t promising. The commandant of midshipmen was a short, intense-looking officer with graying hair. He appeared to be all edges: taut face, prominent beaked nose, and Marine-style buzz cut. His service dress blue uniform, with its four shining rings of gold on the sleeves, was pressed into straight lines wherever possible. His mouth was a thin sliver of determination. Ev had met the captain, soon to be a one-star admiral, but had never had occasion to speak to him one-on-one until this morning. The academic department and executive departments were, by design, worlds apart. Robbins was a surface ship officer and had a reputation for being a stickler for detail, a strict disciplinarian, a workaholic, a physical fitness nut, and a walking, talking personality-free zone. In short, the ideal commandant. But Ev wondered if the chronically choleric captain might not also suffer from short-man’s disease.

“My daughter just told me she’s to be interviewed by NCIS, Captain,” Ev said. He wasn’t sure whether or not to address Robbins as captain or admiral, but since he was still wearing four stripes, he settled on captain. “She need a lawyer here?”

Robbins’s eyebrows rose. “A lawyer? I should think not, Professor. NCIS is here because of the unexplained death of an active-duty midshipman on a federal reservation. They have exclusive jurisdiction to investigate. Standard procedure, within the overall context of a JAGMAN investigation. If it makes you feel better, Midshipman Markham is just one of several people being interviewed.”

Julie was looking straight ahead, her arms still at her sides. “She has the sense that someone thinks she’s involved with this incident,” Ev said, realizing that they were talking as if Julie wasn’t standing there, listening to every word.

“‘Someone’?” Robbins said contemptuously. He glanced around the rotunda as if in search of the world-famous “someone.” A few midshipmen had slowed down to see what was going on when the commandant appeared in the rotunda area. His quick glance sent them scurrying. When Ev didn’t say anything, Robbins continued. “The county medical examiner called with an initial report,” he said, lowering his voice. “No one’s accusing anyone of anything at this moment, Professor Markham. But there may be issues here.” He looked at his watch. A tall civilian had appeared from behind the partition. He looked to Ev like a Marine masquerading as a civilian. He signaled to Julie.

Issues, Ev thought. It had become the latest buzzword when people couldn’t or wouldn’t be specific. He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, Julie,” he said to his daughter, “if you get the sense that someone-excuse me, anyone -in authority is even thinking about holding you responsible for what happened this morning, you stop talking and call me.”

“It’s not going to be like that,” Robbins protested, but Ev raised a hand. With the height disparity between them, an observer might have thought Ev was going to swat the captain.

“Captain, I had to deal with NCIS before, back when I was on active duty. I’m sure you have, too. I submit that you have no idea of how it’s going to be, especially since you can have no direct influence over their line of questioning, correct?”

“Well, of course, Professor Markham,” Robbins said, visibly angry now. He was trying to be polite but barely making it. “We just need to find out what happened, and why, if that’s possible. A young man’s dead, sir. His parents are going to want to know why.”

“I understand, Captain Robbins,” Ev said, matching the commandant’s formal civility. “But this parent wants to make sure there’s no rush to judgment for purposes, say, of getting this unfortunate incident rapidly behind us.”

Robbins stiffened at that. Ev was speaking in code, but it was a code they both understood. The Academy was highly sensitive to bad news, and the administration had become very adept at damage control in recent years. From the look in Captain Robbins’s eye, Ev realized he might have pushed things too hard. The commandant was the number-two executive at the Academy, reporting only to Rear Admiral McDonald, the superintendent. A civilian professor, tenured though he might be, was well down the food chain from the commandant of midshipmen. But Ev sensed he needed to put the administration on immediate notice: Any attempt to railroad Julie was going to light some fuses.

“Midshipman Markham,” Robbins said, turning to Julie. “Please go with Mr. Hall there. He will escort you to my conference room, where you’ll meet with the NCIS people.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Julie said, and headed for the rangy civilian standing next to the partition. Ev waited for her to disappear into the executive hallway before turning back to the commandant. “The word in the Brigade is that the plebe jumped,” he said.

“The ‘word’ in the Brigade is more properly called scuttlebutt and is almost always bullshit, Professor,” Robbins said. Ev noticed that Robbins was beginning to do what the mids irreverently called the “Dant’s Dance,” popping up and down on the balls of his feet whenever he became impatient. It probably didn’t help that he had to crane his neck to look up at Ev. “Look, we’d appreciate it if you would back off for the moment and let the system work. I guarantee you that your daughter will be treated fairly. She has an excellent reputation in her class. Again: Our objective here is to find out what happened and why. That’s all.”

Ev started to reply, but the way Robbins had said “That’s all” sounded very much like a dismissal. It was not an unreasonable request. Julie was an adult, twenty-one, and about to be a commissioned officer. Even as a parent, Ev had no legal standing here; thus, discretion was probably the better part of valor at this juncture. If he got too far up the commandant’s nose, it would be Julie who’d take the heat for it. He nodded and left the rotunda. The commandant, still rocking up on his toes, watched him go for a moment before heading for the partition that separated the public Academy from the very private one.

It would take Ev five minutes to walk from Bancroft Hall back to Sampson Hall, home of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences. It was 1:30, so the mids were all in class by now. Except for tourists, he had Stribling Walk to himself. The central Yard was a beautiful parklike setting, with its many marble monuments to famous people or incidents of naval history. The brick walk began at the imposing circular colonnade in front of Bancroft Hall and ended one thousand feet away at the equally imposing marble facade of the Mahan Hall complex. There were statues, cenotaphs, an obelisk, heavily oxidized bronze busts, and cannons littering a landscape of brick walks and bright green grass, all presided over by stately old trees. The towering dome of the Academy chapel rose twenty stories through the trees to his left, and the glimmering surface of the Severn River shone between the academic buildings to his right. Stubby gray Yard Patrol boats, YPs, used for seamanship training, blatted their horns out along the quay wall. He had to step around some open trenches, signs of the Academy’s notorious “diggers and fillers” at work on their seemingly perpetual endeavors.

An NCIS investigation, he thought, mentally shaking his head. Overseen by the Academy’s administration. Hell, maybe the FBI would even get into it, depending on what those mysterious “issues” were. There were already too many bureaucracies getting involved in this incident. And once the media engaged, Ev knew the administration would begin to circle the wagons, if they weren’t doing so already. He was determined to make damn sure they didn’t leave Julie outside the circle. He stopped halfway down Stribling Walk, thumbed his cell phone open, and called Worth Battle, Esquire.

“Rivers, Linden, Battle and Hall,” a smooth female voice answered. Ev loved the title of the firm: It had such a reassuring resonance.

“Hi, Felicity,” he replied.

“Oh, hi, Professor Markham,” she said.

“Is himself around?”

“Let me check,” she said, putting him on hold to the sound of Mozart. Ev sat down on one of the benches that lined the walk and waited. Worth came on the line.

“Doctor,” he said.

“Counselor,” Ev responded in the familiar litany. “We may need a lawyer.”

“We?”

“Julie and I.”

“Are we on a cell phone by any chance?”

“Yes.”

“Call me on a landline. Say thirty minutes.”

Ev went on back to Sampson Hall, which flanked Mahan at the end of Stribling Walk. He headed directly for his office, putting a finger to his lips when Dolly tried to tell him the meeting was still going on. He shut the door as quietly as he could and sat down at his desk. There were no messages. He worried about Julie, sitting in the commandant’s conference room with two thugs from the NCIS.

Thugs -that’s too strong a word, he reflected. NCIS agents weren’t thugs, but his experiences with NIS, the current organization’s predecessor, had not impressed him. Maybe things were different now that they had a new title and civilian leadership. He just wished it wasn’t his only daughter they were interrogating. Okay, interviewing. He sighed and checked the clock, anxious to talk to Worth. To his surprise, the intercom line on his phone rang.

“Mr. Battle, sir,” Dolly said. He punched the flashing button on his elderly Navy desk phone.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Worth asked without preamble.

Ev described what had happened that morning, then told him that Julie was now closeted with NCIS agents over in the commandant’s office.

“Right. And nobody will say what put the spotlight on Julie?”

“Nope. I talked to the dant himself. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming. The word in the Yard is that the kid was a jumper, but the official party line is accident until proven otherwise. Supposedly, everyone’s still in the fact-finding mode. There are, apparently, ‘issues.’”

“Did Julie know this kid? As in, Anything going on?”

“Not like that. Yes, she did know him. She was on last year’s summer detail, and she’d had him come around a couple of times during the year. But no to your second question. Worth, she’s a firstie. This kid was a plebe, and, according to her, something of a weak sister. Firsties don’t get emotionally involved with plebes, except when they’re yelling at them.”

“That’s not something you could probably prove, Your Eminence. But, okay, I’ll stipulate. For now. Look, you remember Liz DeWinter? I introduced you two at that dinner party I did on my boat?”

“Of course.” He did indeed. Liz DeWinter, a classy thirty-something who was also a lawyer. And twice divorced, he reminded himself. She had been vague about exactly what kind of law she did-something political, having to do with the fact that Annapolis was the capital of Maryland.

“You ever call her, by the way?” Worth asked.

“Well, no, I didn’t. She was very nice and eminently streetable, Worth, but…”

“Yeah, ‘but.’ Always the ‘but.’ Well, look, she’s a criminal defense lawyer. Under all that linen, legs, and lace, she’s a gunfighter. Does mainly political corruption cases, of which we always seem to have one or two going here in the capital of the great state of Maryland, my Maryland.”

“So I’ve read. I mean about the corruption. Sounds a little high-powered for what’s going on here. I mean-”

“You just stepped off your rock of expertise, Doctor, if I may be so bold,” said Worth, interrupting him. “If you think Julie’s in trouble, high power is what you want right out of the gate. Especially if the Dark Side over there in Bancroft Hall is going shields-up, Mr. Sulu.”

Ev smiled at Worth’s wild blend of metaphors and Hollywood allusions. But then he thought about what Worth was saying, which was precisely what he’d been worried about earlier.

“Look, I’ll call Liz for you,” Worth offered. “You know, a referral. Then she’ll owe me lunch.”

“Can I afford this?” Ev asked.

“Can you afford not to? Yes, Liz is expensive, but you’ve got the money, right?”

Worth was right about the money. Joanne had been killed one rainy night by a drunk driver, an elderly but still practicing surgeon, no less, at the top of the towering Chesapeake Bay Bridge. He’d passed her in a drunken weave on the westbound bridge at high speed and lost control on the wet, steel surface. Caroming off both guardrails, he’d come back at her, head on, and knocked her car completely off the bridge. The state troopers had found her car’s license plate in the road debris. It had taken divers two days to find the car, intact but windowless, so she’d probably survived the bridge impact, but not the drop into the bay from nearly two hundred feet in the air. Or maybe she had, considering the fact that her air bag had been deployed but the shoulder belt unlatched. Joanne wouldn’t start the car without her seat belt. Even worse, her body had never been recovered. While Ev and Julie were still reeling from this news, Worth had stepped right in, threatened the doctor’s insurance company with a $20 million personal injury lawsuit, and obtained a substantial seven-figure settlement in less than a week, plus a public admission by the drunk-driving doctor that he was an alcoholic. So, yes, he had the money. He would have preferred to have his wife.

“Okay, Worth,” Ev said, still thinking about what had happened to Joanne. “And, not for the first time, many thanks.”

“Semper fry,” Worth said, and hung up.

Ev made an almost-perfect landing with his scull alongside the pontoon dock, then nearly tipped himself into the creek extracting himself. He ended up sitting on the hemp mat with skinned knees and elbows, holding on to the slim craft with one heel. He looked around as discreetly as he could to see if any of his rowing neighbors on the creek had been watching, but no one appeared to be about except Mrs. Murphy next door, who waved and smiled. He smiled weakly, waved back, and pulled the scull up onto the dock, secured it on its rack, and went up the path to the house, cooling rapidly as the sweat evaporated from his skin. He’d gone all the way up to the Route 50 bridge in a burst of sustained effort he hadn’t attempted since his days rowing crew for the Academy. He would pay for that run tonight, he realized, but this business with Julie had stressed him out, and heavy-duty exercise was his best cure for that.

He got a shower and checked messages. Nothing from Julie, but there was one from Liz DeWinter. She’d given him her home number. Brother Worth coming through, he thought. Battle had become a big-time legal eagle in the capital, and Ev knew he was lucky to have him as an attorney. He went out to the back porch to start up a charcoal fire, got himself a glass of wine, and then called Liz. Just when he thought he was going to get voice mail, she picked up.

“Hi, Liz, this Ev Markham. Is this a convenient time to talk?”

“It is indeed, Ev. How are you?”

“Worried.”

“Yeah, Worth filled me in. Have you heard any more from your daughter?”

“No, I haven’t, but I expect she’ll call tonight. You know how it is over in Bancroft Hall-they keep those kids running all day and half the night.”

“So I’ve heard. But she hasn’t been accused of anything that you know of, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“What’s her connection to the plebe who died?”

“Don’t know,” he replied. “I’m waiting to find out what that is, assuming she’s found out by now.”

“Okay. Let’s assume I do get into this. She would be the client, right?”

“I think so. She’s legally an adult. I sure as hell know nothing about all this, except for what Julie is telling me, so I can’t imagine I’ll need representation. But I’d feel better if Julie had access to legal counsel, if not outright representation.”

“Understood. Usually government bureaucracies, like the Academy or the state government, which is my area of expertise, act differently if they know there’s a lawyer in the game for the other side.”

He considered that. “The Navy’s pretty conservative,” he said. “If Julie gets a lawyer right away, will it make her look like she’s done something that now needs defending?”

“If you detect that, you simply mention my name and tell them that I’m your attorney and that you’ve told me there’s something going on. That way, you’re just an individual who put a call in to his lawyer. Trust me, the bureaucrats will get the message.”

“And Julie? What does she say?”

“As little as possible. How old is your daughter?”

“She’s twenty-one. Which means that technically, even as her father, I’ve got no standing in this.”

“Which makes you feel just wonderful.”

“Exactly. I just beat my brains out on the Severn in my scull to decompress.”

“I know that feeling: I go to the pool for laps when I get that way.”

He remembered her more clearly now, especially when she mentioned the swimming. She was no more than five two, if that, but sleek, with short dark hair, intense blue eyes, and a full-breasted, voluptuous body that he’d noticed all the way across the lounge before they’d been introduced on Worth’s yacht. “Now I’m trying to decide between drinking or taking some Chinese herbs before I stiffen up in this chair,” he said.

“No contest there,” she said. “Those Chinese are all Communists, so go for the vino. When your daughter checks in, have her call me if it isn’t past eleven. If I’m going to be her lawyer, she has to ask me directly.”

“I’ll tell her. And thanks for getting on this so quickly. And, of course, I’ll be paying the bills. Is there a retainer?”

“Yes, but let’s see what we’ve got first. Who knows, they may just be playing it straight and interviewing anybody who might have known the dead guy.”

“I guess that’s what they should be doing,” he said. He thanked her again, hung up, and went to throw a fish he’d bought earlier on the grill. The porch was settling into shadows as evening fell. The property was heavily wooded, and he could only see the homes on either side because of their lights. The creek behind the house, which was an estuary of the Severn River and not a real stream, was nearly two hundred feet wide. Its surface was calm and black except where lights from houses across the way reflected on it. Someone’s dog was barking excitedly on the other side.

The lady lawyer was probably right: This would blow over once they ruled it a suicide, and that would be that.

You hope, a voice echoed in his head.

Conscious of thinking in circles, he checked to make sure his fish wasn’t burning. C’mon Julie, he thought. Call me.

Jim Hall tossed the remains of a greaseburger extravaganza into the pier Dumpster as he walked through the darkness toward his boat. He lived aboard a thirty-six-foot Pearson ketch. His father had owned a large boat-repair yard in Pensacola, and he’d spent his childhood in the yard, learning everything there was to know about steel, aluminum, and wooden hull repairs, diesel and gasoline marine engines, and the byzantine economics of the boat business, from small runabouts all the way up to large commercial fishing boats. He’d restored the ketch after buying it at an insurance auction for one-tenth its initial price. He’d been living here in the Bayside Marina ever since his original assignment as the CO of the Academy’s Marine detachment, which meant he’d been a resident of Crabtown for going on six years now.

He let himself through the wire gate at the head of the pier and made his way down the gangway to the floating portion of the pier. His boat, at nearly forty feet, took up almost one entire side of the pier, its graceful bow looming over the sun-bleached planks and bobbing inflatable fenders. He automatically inspected the mooring lines as he walked down its shining white length. He was proud of his work on the Chantal, which had been named for the hurricane that had brought the boat to him, literally. He was equally proud of the fact that he owned her outright, unlike his three neighbors on the other side of the pier, who were never more than one or two bad days on Wall Street away from being ex -owners. He disarmed the alarm system, using the keypad at the top of the gangway, and then let himself in through the railing gate. As soon as he stepped aboard, there came a throaty squawk from inside the main lounge. Guard parrot on the job, he thought.

Jim changed into jeans and sweatshirt, turned on the air conditioning to refresh the air down below, and then took a small scotch up the companionway to the awning-covered cockpit and plopped himself down in the large captain’s chair. Jupiter, his double yellow-headed Amazon parrot, was perched on the left shoulder of his bird vest, where he began his preening ritual. Jim had to keep his glass on the upwind side to avoid the silent rain of fuzz, down, and other feathery debris that always accompanied the nightly preening session.

“You’re a dirty damned bird,” he muttered.

“Dirty damned bird,” Jupiter croaked, unmoved by epithets.

The evening was cool and clear, and the water was relatively quiet. Someone was having a small party two piers over, and he could hear the background music, but the live-aboards in this marina were pretty considerate about not making too much noise on weeknights.

It had been an all-around ugly day. Unsure of the police protocol, he’d not stayed for the NCIS interviews, nor had the two agents-no, special agents-asked him to. He was the Academy security officer, but they were the investigating agency. They had made that “exclusive jurisdiction” point several times to anyone who would listen, especially Flasher Babe, who was apparently very sensitive about her bureaucratic prerogatives. The local Annapolis cops backed out with what to Jim felt like unseemly haste, but he supposed they had enough on their plates without getting entangled in what was sure to become yet another Naval Academy media success.

He had secured the impact zone, his term for it, as best he could for the NCIS Crime Scene Unit, and also the boy’s room on the fourth floor of the eighth wing. Only later in the morning had he thought to secure all access up to the wing’s rooftop gallery. Agent Branner had been upset about that, forcing him to remind the two ace investigators that they hadn’t directed him to secure anything. The grumbling subsided after their CSU came up virtually empty at the end of the day. There were no evidentiary questions to be explored down on the plaza, where the boy had actually landed, the cause of death being copiously obvious, even after the efforts of a medical decontamination unit. The plebe’s room had apparently produced no evidence of a crime.

The choleric Captain Robbins had spent the afternoon in a marathon meeting with his executive staff. Jim had tried to duck out, but Robbins wanted everybody present for duty. The Academy’s Public Affairs officers, knowing what was coming, had spent a lot of time preparing everyone for the inevitable media onslaught. The commandant himself had crafted the approved spin: The investigation team assumed it was an accident but was going to also look into the possibility of suicide. Given what he had seen of the plebe’s remains after impact, Jim thought that was going to be a tough call.

He shook his head. Suicide didn’t compute. Here was an eighteen-year-old kid who had successfully navigated the annual service academy admissions wars, and now he was a smashed pumpkin in a drawer over at the Anne Arundel County morgue. There were over ten thousand applicants each year for each of the academies, twelve hundred of whom were finally appointed after a grueling year and a half spent dealing with the competitive admissions process. Granted, plebe year at the academies was a rough road, as he knew from personal experience. But to have achieved sustained success for twelve years of primary and secondary school in academics, extracurricular activities, student government offices, athletics, and then the Academy appointment process, and then to jump off the roof? The Academy typically graduated 76 percent of an entering class, which meant that three hundred or so mids fell to attrition out of every entering class. Usually, they either failed academically or decided that the program was too hard and opted out on their own. But suicide?

He’d been intrigued by the one interviewee, the bright-looking female first class midshipman-what was her name? Mark something. Markingham? Admittedly, he hadn’t paid that much attention to her name. But she was going to be one important way into the investigation, given that the deceased had been wearing her underwear. On the other hand, he thought, if this was something more than a suicide or accident, and you were a bad guy and wanted to implicate somebody in a crime, that was one sure way to do it. But that meant murder, and Jim simply could not envision any motive for murder within the Brigade of Midshipmen. The possible exception would be a boy-girl thing, and even that was remote. Midshipmen did date other midshipmen, but usually within their own year group. It was sufficiently unusual that even the mids called it “dark-siding.” And plebes weren’t given time to think about dating.

Jupiter shook his feathers out, producing a veritable cloud of parrot dust. Jim waved his hand in front of his face and was rewarded by a love nip to his left ear.

“What’s your act, bird?” he asked, looking up sideways at the bird’s beady-eyed face. Jupiter ignored him and began to gnaw on one of his claws, gripping harder with the other one. Jim was glad for the padded bird vest. Jupiter could really grab if he wanted to, as some of Jim’s lady friends had found out. Jupiter wasn’t a bad parrot; he was simply Jim’s parrot.

He finished his scotch, grateful for its ability to overcome the queasy-greasy feeling in his stomach. Tomorrow will probably be worse, he thought. Tomorrow the press will be into it. He suddenly felt very tired.

“C’mon, bird,” he said, getting up out of the chair. “It’s tree time in the city.” He swept the bird off his shoulder and onto his right hand, then held the parrot over a sand-filled trash can, where Jupiter did the right thing. “Good bird,” he said.

“Good bird,” Jupiter acknowledged, and they went below.

At nine o’clock that evening, Ev was in his study, correcting some student papers, when he heard Julie bang through the kitchen screen door and call for him.

“In here, Julie,” he called back, placing the papers in a folder and closing it. She came in a moment later, dressed in full sweats. Her face was bright red, almost the color of the reflective vest she wore over her hooded shirt. She dropped the headless eight iron she carried to ward off unruly dogs and flopped down in one of the big leather chairs. Both she and the chair let out an enormous exhalation.

“Want a beer?” he asked brightly, and she managed a smile.

“Whole point was to work off the last one,” she gasped. “But I’m definitely going to walk back. Slowly, too.”

“Okay, so give: What went down with the NCIS people?”

She took another minute to regulate her breathing. Every night except Sundays and Wednesdays, firsties in good academic standing were allowed to leave Bancroft Hall after dinner for what was called “town liberty,” but they had to be back in by midnight. Given the academic load, Julie rarely took town liberty during the week.

“I didn’t want to use the hall phones,” she said. “Everyone’s eavesdropping at the pay phones, and the cell phones-”

“Are radios. Right, I know that. Now, what happened?”

“There were two of them,” she said. “A man and a woman. They started out being real polite. Then they went into one of those good cop/bad cop routines. I mean, how dumb is that? It was so cop show.”

“What was the connection?”

She told him.

He blinked. Panties? “WTF? Over.”

“Roger that, Father Time. They traced them back through my laundry number. I mean, c’mon, Dad, how embarrassing is that!”

“Certainly different,” he said, getting up from his chair. “And they assumed that you and this plebe were closer than the regs envision?”

“They weren’t exactly sharing. They flat out asked if Dell and I had been intimate. Answer: negative, of course. I wouldn’t be caught dead dark-siding a plebe, even if it were legal, which of course it isn’t. No firstie would.”

“But he was found wearing your underwear, and dead, to boot. Logical question: How did he get your skivvies, and why on earth would a normal guy wear women’s underwear?”

“You’re assuming Dell was normal,” she snapped. “Ipso facto, he wasn’t.”

“Is there some way a plebe could raid your skivvy drawer?”

“He’d have to be pretty brazen, but, yes, our rooms aren’t locked during the academic day. You know, for surprise room inspections.”

“So he could have knocked on the door, stepped in, and sounded off. Anyone in the passageway seeing him do it would assume that he was coming around. If no one happened to be in the room, once the door closed, he could take anything he wanted?”

“I suppose,” she said. “Except this plebe, well, I don’t think he’d have the balls to do that.”

“So you did know him?”

She shrugged defensively. “Sort of. Like, I helped a lot of plebes during plebe summer, Dad. That’s what we were there for, to get them through it, and to keep them from bolting out the front gate on parents’ weekend.”

He paced around the room, while Julie remained sprawled in her chair. “And they wanted to know if you remembered Dell, right?”

“That was the gist of their questions: Did I know Midshipman Dell? When was the last time I’d seen him? Did I have any sort of relationship with him? Had I contacted him via E-mail? Did I have him come around often?”

“And you told them what, exactly?”

“That I’d trained him, plus a thousand other worms, during plebe summer. That I’d had Dell come around a couple of times earlier in the year. I actually had to explain what a come-around was. That woman was pretty ignorant.”

“Or playing dumb,” he said.

“Whatever. I guess I saw Dell from time to time. Just like I saw every other plebe in our battalion. But I didn’t really know him. He was just another plebe, you know? Unless they’re really screwed up-you know, notorious-all plebes look alike.”

“You said they did a bad cop/good cop routine. Over what?”

“The black guy played good cop. He was encouraging me to think real hard, remember every detail. Sincere. Concerned. Encouraging. The woman-” Julie shivered. “She was a piece of work. Good-looking, but so full of herself. Acted like she thought she was on TV or something. Kept reminding me they’d be checking my answers out with lots of other mids, so make sure I didn’t hold anything back. That I was under oath, and that they’d be reporting everything to the commandant. Like that. It was so transparent.”

“Unless they’re partners, in which case they may have rehearsed all those moves,” he said. “But I guess I can understand their interest.”

“Dad, there’s nothing to tell. He was just another plebe. Really! There are over a thousand of them.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, sitting back down so he could face her. “Were they, in fact, interviewing other mids?”

“I saw his company officer, the Twenty-fourth Company’s commander, and another plebe in the commandant’s waiting room. You should have seen the looks I got.”

Julie was a pretty girl, so naturally other mids might make assumptions, Ev realized. Except he knew from his own personal experience that the plebe-firstie taboo was pretty strong. Plebes were lower than whale shit, and no firstie would demean him-or herself-by getting into any kind of relationship with such a lower-tier life-form other than to run the hell out of them. On the other hand, Ev had graduated before there had been women midshipmen at the Naval Academy, so maybe the dynamic had changed more than he knew.

“How’d they leave it?” he asked.

“‘Thank you for your time, Midshipman Markham. We’ll be in touch if we have further questions, Midshipman Markham. Don’t talk about this interview to anyone, Midshipman Markham.’ Oh, and the kicker: The woman gets up, shakes my hand, and then goes, ‘We’re finished with you. For now.’”

Ev frowned. “You think you’re not done?”

“I was waiting for her to say, ‘Don’t leave town, Midshipman Markham.’ I put out rumor fires for the rest of the day within my own company. Hosed a control system quiz this afternoon. Then, of course, we had the obligatory company all-hands, touchy-feely to ‘talk out’ the Dell incident. Lieutenant Tarrens playing at grief counselor. That kind of wimp-ass, liberal shit really bites, you know? And there’ve been lots of grave pronouncements from the commandant’s office. Heavy-duty cautions about discussing the incident: ‘Remember, there are grieving parents involved here. Don’t make it worse.’ Like that.”

“That last bit is reasonable enough,” he said. “A midshipman is dead, after all. His parents didn’t send him here to die.”

“Okay, but you know what? There’re lots of channels open if a plebe is having that much trouble. Everyone gets training on how to detect a suicidal situation, and every plebe is told a million times he can take a time-out if the plebe year shit gets too heavy. Where were his own company firsties? And how about his squad leader? The youngsters who’re supposed to be mentoring? That’s who they ought to be grilling, not me.”

“Except for that one odd feature,” he reminded her.

She flushed. “Okay, so I can’t explain that,” she said, getting up to go get something to drink. “But it wasn’t like I was wearing his underwear.”

He followed her into the kitchen. She was bent over, rooting impatiently around in the refrigerator for something to drink. Joanne had done the same thing in precisely the same way. Julie was even shaped like Joanne. He was struck by how much his daughter was like her mother. More so, now that Joanne was gone, he realized. He told her about calling Liz DeWinter.

“Really?” she said, straightening up with a jug of skim milk in her hand. “You think I need a lawyer?”

“Maybe,” he replied. “And so does Liz. Especially right now, when everyone’s staking out their positions. If nothing else, it will make them be more careful, say, if there’s more to this incident than we know.”

“‘Liz’? Do you know this woman from before?” she asked a bit too casually. He hesitated a fraction of a second before replying. Julie was still sensitive about the possibility that another woman might replace her mother. She could mouth all the right words about his getting on with life and so forth, but all the same, Ev knew he had to be careful. “Worth Battle recommended her, after I called him. I’d met her once at one of his boat parties. He thinks she’s pretty good.”

“But won’t they find it suspicious? That I called for a lawyer? Since I truly wasn’t involved?”

“You didn’t call for a lawyer. I did. Which is why you’ll let me break that news to them, okay? You’re twenty-one, about to be commissioned, so the administration will deal directly with you. But I want you to call Liz. Now, in fact. You can stay for another few minutes. Let her tell you what to say if anything else comes down.”

“And she’s a criminal defense lawyer?”

“Well, you were talking to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service today, Julie.”

“Got yourself a point, there, Judge,” she said, going for some more milk. “Sure, I’ll talk to her. Hell, yes. Then I’ve got to get back. Have an econ test tomorrow. God! Two more weeks.”

Well, it’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m back. Undetected, of course. I think I told you that I was going to be running the tunnels tonight. Left at 12:10, out the eighth wing’s basement door, the one the mokes use to remove the daily trash. Dressed myself out in full sweats, the ones with the West Point Army logo, courtesy of a swim match bet against the Whoops a year ago. Had to wear the hood up so my shiny head didn’t show. Did the usual recon: a slow jog, down toward the seawall. Everyone thinks I shave my head for the swimming, but, hell, I’m the Shark! Don’t need any edge. No, I shaved it for the resident Marines. Let ’em know I’m gung ho. I jog like I swim, with power and precision. Always have some Marine trail cadence echoing in my mind as I pick ’em up and put ’em down. Marine cadence: Le-oh-ft-le-oh-ft-le-oh-ft, right, le-oh-ft. Army cadence: Left, left, left…When I need to really breathe, I let my mouth hang open, baring my teeth. The Shark. Hungry. Top predator on the prowl. Cruising. I sometimes hope I’ll run into someone out on those marble terraces at night, give ’em a mouthful of white teeth inside a darkened hood.

But not tonight. I’d called my little Johnnie vampire over on campus. You don’t know her, but you’d like her, I think. Well, maybe not. She’s just a little bit bent. Heavy into magic mushroom just now, and not the kind they serve in the mess hall. Made the cell call right after evening meal. Did it right in front of two plebes I had sweating bullets while plastered against the wall in their room. Made a little torment drill out of it, talking so they could hear, purring out some highly suggestive sweet nothings about her underwear. They couldn’t hear her, but they sure as hell could hear me. A little phone sex routine, just to bother them, kept it going even after she’d hung up. But not before she set things up for after midnight, her room, of course, candles, some of that dismal shrieking shit they call Goth music, and with maybe a few friends to watch… Goths love to watch. And so many of them are so stone-ugly that watching is all they’ll ever get.

Anyhow, the Yard’s a ghost town at that hour. Mother Bancroft at darkened-ship except, if you look closely, you can see the occasional flicker of flashlights where some poor bastards were sweating out a 2.0 average. I don’t have that problem, of course. I study. Well, actually, there’s a little bit more to it than that. It’s what I study that makes the difference. I always get the Gouge. I am a master of the Gouge. Three, four times a day, I’m out there on the Academy intranet, sifting for fast-moving intelligence about the next day’s quiz, or past patterns of questions. And: news flash! I actually study the material assigned by the profs. What a concept, huh? See, I’ve figured out which profs telegraph their test questions in their homework assignments. And which ones are too lazy to create a whole new quiz or exam, which means they go back to previous exams. All of which have to be approved. Via the faculty intranet. Where I have learned to lurk.

But you know, the system here is pretty straight-ahead. You work like hell to get the good grades going early on, and then ride the expectations train, with a little help from some selective hacking. After awhile, the profs expect me to do well, and then grade accordingly. That’s how I have a 3.69 cume after almost four years. I do get help from the profs, of course. It’s just that they don’t always know they’re helping me…

So, where was I? Oh yeah, jogging down the road along Santee Basin, listening to the Academy sailboats bouncing around on a light evening chop coming in from the bay, their halyards clinking in time on their masts. Isn’t that poetic? Easing on down to Dewey Field, which always smells like fresh-cut grass and dead fish. Then the obligatory recce run: jogging around the perimeter, scoping things out. They’ve got all those big light towers out there, but the rich people across the river bitched about the lights being left on all night, so now they shut ’em down, which is perfectly cool for us night runners.

But of course I wasn’t out there for any exercise. I was on the lookout for the Jimmylegs. Funny-ass name. Apparently in days gone by, really gone by, the Academy’s civilian police wore white lace-up leggings on the bottoms of their trou. Now, of course, they drive around in small pickup trucks, one, sometimes two to a truck, patrolling the entire Yard and the housing areas. Looking for A-rabs, probably. That’s why I start out a tunnel run with a little topside jog, because the cops wouldn’t care about a lone jogger, assuming they could even see me out here in the darkness along the river. Us mid coolies are supposed to be locked up for the night, of course, but sometimes guys come out to decompress from a bad day, and there have been lots of those over the past years, haven’t there? This whole place is mostly a succession of bad days. You know what they say: This place sucks so bad, there’s a permanent low pressure system over Annapolis.

Like today. Some plebe offed himself. Now that was news all right. No Gouge today on the LAN. Everybody with verbal E-diarrhea, sending shitloads of E-mail, bogging down the system. And the officers: oh, yeah. The officers were all stone-faced. Big trouble on the Dark Side. Made me smile, watching them today. Made me show my big teeth. And there are rumors. Man, are there some interesting rumors. Serious scuttlebutt moving down the wires. But you probably know all about that by now.

So here’s the drill! I jog around until I see the headlights, then step over to stand next to a light standard, right on the seawall. Gray on black. Invisible when the security truck comes around Rickover Hall and goes down Holloway Road. Drive right on by without a pause. Gotta improve that situational awareness, guys, A-rabs in the bushes, get you killed someday if you don’t. Every Marine knows that. Anyway, once the truck goes by, I hop the seawall. Last night, I had a nice high tide, which is cool-we sharks like deep water. I untied the rope from around my waist, hooked it up, and then climbed down onto that grating that covers the big storm drain. Which you’ve probably never seen, because it’s usually underwater. The seawall stones are slippery and smell of dead fish and crabs. Yuk-os. If all those Save the Bay tree-huggers are doing such a great job, how come the bay always smells of dead fish?

Do you know the drain I’m talking about? No, of course you don’t. It’s made of concrete, and it’s, like, five feet in diameter. I have to stoop over to make it. There’s always a little bit of water running down the center. Condensation from all those steam tunnels up ahead-you know, the ones that crisscross under the Yard. I do my usual knee-capping running drill. It’s fifteen hundred feet, almost exactly. I know the tunnels, you see. Really know them. You’d be amazed at what’s down there. The graffiti, for instance. Guys have been going down there for a long time. Playing games. Wonderful games, some of them.

Last night, my objective was what I call “Broadway,” that big tunnel that runs under Stribling. The storm drain’s dark, but Broadway has lights. You get a nice burn in your thighs, bent over like that, high-stepping up a slope that goes three football fields. But, hell, I’m, like, tough as nails; I could run that particular tunnel all night. It takes 210 steps before you hit the flap doors. You have to count-it’s pitch-black until you open the flap doors.

Everything’s different when you’re underground, you know. Well, you’re a norm. Semi-norm? Maybe you don’t. But I do. For one thing, the air doesn’t move much. It’s always warmer than you expect, especially around the steam lines. A peculiar smell, steam. Actually, it’s all the old lagging that smells. Steam’s just hot water. You get a hint of it in the storm drain, but once you get into Broadway, it’s really strong.

Broadway is the main drag of the tunnel system. Ten feet square. Overhead lights in those little metal cages. Filled with steam pipes, telephone lines, electric power cable bundles, compressed-air lines, and even the sewer and water mains servicing Bancroft Hall. They have these underground concrete chambers that branch off of Broadway all along its route, where they have these huge chillers for air conditioning. Cross passageways that branch out to all the main academic buildings, the administration building next to the chapel, and the chapel itself. A whole world down there. My world.

Did you know I’ve been running those tunnels since the middle of youngster year? I have. A teammate on the swim team-guy was a serious sex hound-showed me something that not too many people know about: Ever since the Academy moved the power plant out of the Yard, every one of those utility lines eventually runs out into dear old Crabtown. Now, of course, as a firstie, I get town libs, but, hell, that’s no fun. And besides, my time is the deep night-time. Begins at midnight, because that’s when my little vampires come alive over in town. What a guy won’t do for true love, huh? Goth love. Now that’s a game to die for, right? So to speak.