Countdown

CHAPTER 15

Jefferson's quarterdeck was on her starboard side forward, between the number-one and number-two elevators, a bulge extending out from the ship's hull beneath the flight deck and connecting inboard with the hangar deck.

When Jefferson was in port, this was the carrier's "front door," with a gangway extended to the dock. VIPs and officers entered the ship here, and the space was used for some ceremonial occasions such as piping flag officers or captains aboard.

Now, the day after the Battle of North Cape, Jefferson's quarterdeck was being used for a very specific ceremony, one with its roots in the age of sail, when offenders were called to give an account of themselves before the captain at the foot of the ship's mizzenmast.

Even today, long after masts had given way to screws, it was called captain's mast.

"I am getting damned sick and tired," Captain Brandt said evenly, "of the problems generated by the raging hormones aboard this ship." He looked up at the four men facing him from across the podium before him. Front and center was a young second class, a kid with thick-rimmed glasses and buck teeth that gave him the look of a skinny, frightened rabbit. "How old are you, son?"

"Twenty-one, sir," the kid replied, standing stiffly at attention and managing to look as awkward in his dress blues as a boot at the start of recruit training. He was a photographer's mate from the carrier's OP Department, a PH2 named Tom Margolis, and he looked scared.

"Old enough to know better, in other words." Brandt glanced at the men flanking Margolis. Master Chief Charles Michener, to his left, was a powerfully built tower of ugly black muscle who had been the Jefferson's Master at Arms for the past six months.

His badge of office, like a police officer's badge, gleamed in the overhead lights against his dress blues. Master Chief Mike Weston, on the kid's right, was just as big, just as powerfully built. Where Michener was the closest thing the supercarrier's city-in-miniature had to a chief of police, Weston was that indispensable go-between who ran interference between the enlisted men and the officers, the COB or Chief of the Boat.

Standing off to the right was a chief warrant officer, CWO2 Kimball Dupuy. As head of Jefferson's OP Division, or photographic services, he was Margolis's boss. Brandt had also asked Tombstone Magruder to attend, because the charges against Margolis involved people in the air wing. Tombstone was standing behind the captain, at parade rest.

"Photographer's Mate Second Class Margolis," Brandt continued, "the charges against you are serious enough that they could warrant summary court-martial. I am of a mind to deal with this as a mast offense. However, it is your right to request a summary court, if you prefer, where you can either request legal representation, or have legal representation appointed for you by the court. What is your preference?"

"Uh, no, sir," Margolis said. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.

"I mean, I'll go with the mast. Sir."

"Very well," Brandt said. "That's a wise decision on your part. A court-martial could award far heavier punishment than I, under the articles of the UCMJ, am allowed to give you." He paused, giving his words time to sink in. "Son, you've made a very, very bad mistake here."

Brandt turned his attention to the top of his podium. There was a slender, silver tube there, as thick as a pencil and perhaps eighteen inches long, with a complex assembly attached to one end. Next to that was a manila folder. Pulling the folder to him, he opened it up. He'd already seen the photographs earlier, but he leafed through them again now, slowly, and he could feel the kid trembling as he turned them over one by one.

The top two were contact prints, 8"x10" sheets on which strips of pictures had been pulled straight off the negatives, without enlargement, and the figures there were so tiny a magnifier would be necessary to make out the faces. Twenty-eight more photos, though, were enlargements of some of the contacts, crisp and beautifully detailed black-and-white photographs. All appeared to have been shot from the same position, inside the junior flight officers' shower head and from a high anole, probably from up close to the ceiling.

Each picture showed one or more women, all of them flight officers, all of them revealed nude or only partly dressed. One photo showed someone at the far end of the locker area ― he thought it might be Lieutenant Damiano ― bending over, her buttocks toward the camera as she picked her panties up off the deck. Another, at much closer range, revealed a dripping Lieutenant Commander Conway with one foot up on a bench as she toweled off her crotch, and another apparently taken moments later showed Conway pulling her panties up past her knees.

There was one spectacular full frontal shot of Lieutenant Flynn as she walked toward the showers and the camera, carrying a washcloth and a bar of soap and wearing nothing but her sandals.

"Okay, Chief," he told the MAA. "You want to tell me about this?"

"Yes, sir. Last night, one of my men, Boatswain's Mate First Class Motely, was making his rounds in the enlisted berthing compartments when he noticed two men, PH2 Margolis and one other, looking at something and acting in what he considered to be a suspicious manner. As he approached, the second sailor, who could not be identified, hurried away, while Margolis attempted to hide something under his blanket at the foot of his rack.

"Upon further investigation, PH2 Margolis was found to have in his possession a manila envelope containing five black-and-white photographs, all showing various female officers aboard this ship in the nude. Obviously, the photos were taken in the junior flight officers' shower, and during times when the shower area and head were restricted to female personnel only. Margolis was placed on report and the photographs confiscated."

"I see." He looked at the Chief of the Boat. "Master Chief?"

"The MAA and myself were brought in on this last night, Captain. When we questioned Margolis, he admitted to having a number of other, similar photographs in his possession. When asked to do so, he opened his locker and turned over to us seventy-two negatives and twenty-five additional eight-by-ten photos.

"He confessed that he thought it might be fun to get what he called 'skin pics' of female officers while they were in the shower. He told me that last Thursday afternoon he entered the shower area before it was secured to male personnel, and gained access to the piping and electrical spaces above the locker room by removing an overhead insulation panel and pulling himself up, then replacing the panel behind him.

"As a photographer's mate in the carrier's OP Department, he had routine access to both necessary equipment and the developing and enlarging facilities aboard ship. He says that he processed the photographs in the ship's darkroom during his free time. Developing pictures, incidentally, is one of his regular duties." Weston reached out and picked up the pencil-slender tube on the podium. "To take the pictures without the ladies' knowledge, he used this. It's called an endoscope, and it's a special lens attachment for his 35mm camera. As you can see, it has an extremely narrow bore, allowing him to take photographs through a thumbnail-sized hole poked through an overhead panel without the subjects' knowledge."

Brandt held out his hand, accepting the endoscope from Weston.

"Chief, is this thing government property?"

"No, sir. It's a surveillance device sometimes used by the police or FBI personnel ashore, but it is not illegal for other people to own them. He says he got this one from a friend in Norfolk. He was keeping it in his locker."

"I see. Go ahead."

"Margolis told me that he lay hidden in the overhead crawl space for the two hours while the shower area was secured to male personnel, watching the women and taking pictures of them. He says he shot two rolls, seventy-two shots in all, but that since then he's only had time to make these twenty-eight enlargements."

"I see." To give himself time to think, Brandt returned his attention to the photos in the folder once more. None of the shots, not even that one of Flynn, had the same erotic quality as, say, a photo spread in a typical man's magazine. All were simply hidden-camera pictures of naked or half-dressed women in a locker room, and there was nothing seductive or sexy about their expressions or their poses. Hell, Brandt had seen more exciting stuff in Playboy, and there were certainly plenty of copies of that publication already aboard.

The real excitement, he thought, and the worst aspect of the problem, was generated by the fact that these photographs were not of some anonymous pretty face and body in the pages of a magazine but were all-too-identifiable images of real people, of women literally living and working right next door. Any of Jefferson's men who saw Margolis's pictures would know that it was, say, Lieutenant Joyce Flynn that they'd seen naked… and that could only increase the titillation for them. Hell, every time they met her in a passageway, they'd be thinking about that damned photo.

It made this violation of the women's privacy that much worse, a kind of sneaking, nonphysical rape.

Disgusted, he closed the folder with a snap. "Do you think you got 'em all, Master Chief? Could he have made more?"

"That's all we found in his locker, Captain," Weston replied.

"The negatives from two rolls of film, two contact sheets, and twenty-eight enlargements. We checked the prints against the negatives. He could've made additional prints, of course, but there are no enlargements in that stack that aren't accounted for among the negatives."

"How about it, Margolis? Are these all of the photographs? Or did you already sell some of them to your buddies?"

"Th-those are all, sir. I swear! Two rolls of thirty-six. And I wasn't gonna sell them, sir. They were just… just-"

"Just for the amusement of you and your 'buddies.""

"That's right, sir."

"Did your friends put you up to this?"

Margolis looked uncomfortable. "No, sir. Not really, sir. It was all my idea."

Brandt suspected he was lying, or at least shading the truth a bit.

Margolis didn't fit the profile of the typical shipboard troublemaker, and from the look of him he must have been scared to death throughout the time he was up there in the overhead. He could have done it all alone, but it would have helped to have someone to help boost him up into the crawl space, and to come in and tell him the coast was clear afterward.

Chances were, though, he'd never admit to having accomplices.

He wouldn't want to be seen as a guy who would rat on his shipmates.

Brandt doubted that it would be productive to question him further along those lines.

He tapped the folder with an ominously slow meter for emphasis.

"Son, this had damn well better be all of these. If there are any more, negatives or prints, or if any of your buddies already have some of these, you tell me right now. You won't be in any worse trouble than you already are."

Margolis hesitated, then swallowed. "There aren't any more, sir."

"If I find out that there are more of these floating around this ship, I am going to smack you down so hard that when you look up, whale shit's going to look like shooting stars to you."

"I swear, sir! Really! That's all there are. Two rolls, and I didn't have time to make up any more than those prints you have right there. I gave everything to the COB when he asked me."

"Very well. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Uh… no excuse, sir." The standard Navy all-purpose statement for when you were caught red-handed. Attempts to make excuses in such circumstances generally backfired.

"You sure, son? I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in because of this."

"I… uh, sir, I mean… I didn't mean any harm by it, sir. Honest to God I didn't!"

Brandt looked at the officer behind Margolis. "Chief Warrant Officer Dupuy? Do you have anything to add in this man's defense?"

"Sir, PH2 Margolis has been in my department since he came aboard. He does what he's told, and he's never given me any trouble. Three-eights and four-ohs on his last fitness report. He does his work with a minimum of supervision and he does it well."

"A little too well in this case," Brandt said. "I'd feel better if these things weren't so damned professional-looking. If he'd just cut their heads off or overexposed them or something."

Michener coughed suddenly, and Brandt looked up. He caught a tightening of Weston's jaw, a narrowing of his eyes, and realized the COB was rigidly stifling a laugh. Same with Dupuy.

He replayed what he'd just said in his mind, then groaned inwardly.

Overexposed! Yeah, these women were overexposed, all right, though his pun had been completely unintentional. Damn it all, there were aspects of this mess that were hilarious, but it could lead to bad, bad trouble aboard his ship.

Turning slightly, he waved Tombstone closer. "What do you say, CAG?

These are your people involved. Should we talk to them? Show them the pictures?"

Tombstone caught his lower lip between his teeth, then shook his head.

"Hard call, Captain. But I think maybe not. It wouldn't help anything, and it might hurt morale if the women involved know about this."

"They won't feel like victims if they don't know they've been victimized, that it?"

"Something like that, Captain."

Brandt sighed, then turned back to Margolis. He picked up the folder.

"Son, needless to say, I am confiscating these. MAA, you will see to it personally that these are destroyed at once."

Michener accepted the folder. "Aye, aye, sir."

Brandt picked up the endoscope. "I am also impounding your toy here. It will be locked up in the MAA's office for the duration of the cruise."

He leaned forward over the podium, facing the kid square-on.

"Margolis, the men and women who serve together aboard the Jefferson form a community far more closely knit than any similar community ashore. Such a community works only through the establishment of certain social customs, responsibilities, and most important of all, through the mutual trust between the members of that community.

"By taking these photographs and by attempting to distribute them among your shipmates, you have betrayed your responsibilities as a photographer's mate in Chief Warrant Officer Dupuy's division, and you have betrayed the trust of the people serving aboard this ship with you. Let me ask you something, Margolis. You know it's wrong to rob your shipmates, don't you?"

"Huh? I mean, yeah, sure!"

"Say 'yes, sir,'" the MAA rumbled at his side.

"Yes, sir!"

"The women aboard the Jefferson are our shipmates, Margolis. They deserve our respect and our consideration. By your actions, you have robbed them of their dignity and their privacy. By passing those pictures around, you make your friends thieves as well. What you have done is reprehensible.

It is conduct that cannot and will not be tolerated aboard this vessel." He paused for a moment, watching Margolis. The kid's face was pinched and white, his eyes quite round behind his glasses. He was obviously terrified.

Brandt took a deep breath. "Photographer's Mate Second Class Margolis, you are reduced in rate one pay grade, to Third Class. You will be taken immediately to the ship's brig, where you will be confined on bread and water for two days. Since you seem to have an excess of time on your hands, upon your return to duty you will report to your division officer for two hours' extra duty each day for the next forty-five days. You will also, at the earliest time your duties allow, report to the Chaplain's Office, where you will enroll in Commander Ferris's next available sensitivity training session on sexual harassment. You will attend all of those classes on pain of further and harsher punishment. Do I make myself quite clear?"

"Uh, Y-yes, sir." His voice was scarcely above a whisper. His eyes looked haunted.

"I didn't hear that, son. Sound off!"

"Yessir!"

"If there is a repeat of this incident, if I find out you're holding out on us regarding how many of these prints you made or distributed to your friends, I swear by God that I willbounce you in front of a summary court so fast you won't know what hit you. You'll find yourself in jail back Stateside, and after that you'll be out on the streets with a BCD. Do you think the chance to play Peeping Tom in the girls' shower is worth a bad-conduct discharge?"

"No, sir!"

"I will not tolerate voyeurs, I will not tolerate harassment of the women under my command, and I will not tolerate grown men acting like giggling, sex-crazed adolescents instead of as professionals!

"Margolis, I am not assigning harsher punishment because your record has been exemplary up until now. I also strongly suspect that some of your shipmates put you up to this. I think you've just been listening to the wrong people, and I hope this episode will teach you to be responsible for your own actions.

"At the same time, I'm making your punishment as severe as I am because it is clear that you regarded this escapade as a prank, something that could harm no one. I gave you brig time because I want you to have some time to think about that 'prank' and maybe to think about just how precious a commodity privacy can be aboard ship. Understand me?"

"Yes, sir." The voice was firmer now, though still low. The bread and water, Brandt thought, had jolted him hard, like something out of another time, another world.

The fact was, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Brandt could have hit him with up to three days in the brig and broken him by two pay grades and fined him half of his pay for the next two months, or given the nature of the man's offense, even recommended a summary court. Something like that would wreck the rest of the kid's Navy career.

"Very well," Brandt said at last. "Dismissed."

For a long time after they led the kid out, Brandt stared after them.

The only part of the punishment he'd just meted out that he really regretted was the sensitivity counseling, but that was mandated by current Navy regulations. Back in the '70s, when the Navy's reputation had been blackened by several ugly race-related incidents, all hands had been required to attend consciousness-raising programs intended to stop prejudice and bigotry.

Seminars and programs to fight sexual harassment among naval aviators had been instituted in the wake of the infamous Tail-hook scandal.

Today, all officers and men were routinely put through such programs.

Hell, Margolis would have gone through one in boot camp and another upon his arrival aboard the Jefferson. Unfortunately, Brandt had yet to meet any Navy man who admitted that he'd learned anything from such sessions, and most regarded them as a complete waste of time. Men went into them with their attitudes and prejudices already fully formed. Increased awareness? Brandt grimaced at the thought. Too often, what increased was their resentment against women for the additional burden of bureaucratic micromanaging and official harassments collectively and colloquially known as "Mickey Mouse."

In two centuries of American naval history, the government had yet to find an effective way to legislate the way people thought, and attempts to try always made things worse.

"Never mind the Russians," Brandt told Tombstone. "God save us from adolescent hormones."

"Yes, sir."

Weston returned to the quarterdeck.

"Okay, Master Chief. What's next?"

"Fire Control Technician Third Class Frank Pellet, Captain," the COB said, handing another folder to Brandt. "Charged by Commander Frazier with negligence and inattention to duty."

"The Dickinson."

"Yes, sir." He looked like he was about to say something more.

"Well? What else? Spit it out, Master Chief."

"Captain, it has come to my attention that FCT3 Pellet is gay, and that there was an, um, incident the night before the battle. It was reported to me unofficially by a first class in the MAA's division."

Brandt closed his eyes. "Sex again. God damn it, sex and salt water…" He stopped himself, then slapped the folder down on the podium. "Master Chief, this one gets held over for a court. We may have to wait until a full inquiry into the Dickinson incident is complete. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"In any case, this'll be a matter for the CID. Pellet is confined to quarters until we can get him the hell off my ship."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

"Criminal investigation?" Tombstone asked, one eyebrow raised.

"I was there in CIC when it happened, sir. The kid got confused and threw the wrong switch."

"Seventeen men died aboard the Dickinson, Tombstone. Can we tell their wives, mothers, and sweethearts that they died because a twenty-year-old kid got confused? Forty-three more were wounded. What do I tell them? The Dickinson is barely afloat and limping back to Narvik at a time when this battle force needs every anti-air and antisubmarine asset it can muster. That kid's inattention nearly cost us a ship, and it might have cost us a battle.

In any case, any time lives are lost, there has to be an inquiry… and criminal charges. It's out of my hands."

"Yes, sir."

"The hell of it is, even if he gets shipped back to the States for trial, we still won't be off the hook. You know, I've got a very unpleasant feeling that we haven't heard the last of either one of these affairs… Margolis or Pellet."

Tombstone nodded slowly. "I'm afraid I have to agree, sir."