Silent Waters

Chapter 31

Bruce Dunn considered the avalanche of information on the computer, in the phone calls, in the hundreds of pages of files that were stacked up on the conference table. These contained what he needed to know about everyone possibly connected with the hijacking.

But Bruce was more confused now than when he’d started.

He felt as if he knew less about some of these people after reading their files. Nothing made sense. Ends didn’t meet and from the phone conversations he was having with Admiral Meisner, it seemed that no one realized that something was wrong.

He shut the file on Paul Cavallaro and leaned back in the chair, his hands threaded together behind his head. He stared into space, but a muted TV screen at one end of the conference room caught his attention.

The TV cameras were inside the White House. President Hawkins and a group of high-ranking military advisors were going into a conference room. The President waved at the camera and shook hands with reporters before going in. He acted like it was a normal day. La-di-dah. Nothing much happening. If the sun stayed out, he’d probably get in a round of golf later. Just another day like any other in his presidency.

There wasn’t even a sense that it was the day before the elections.

As the door of the conference room closed on the President and his advisors, the shot changed to views outside the White House. Pennsylvania Avenue was deserted, and cameras zoomed in on the military snipers on the roof while F1 fighters flew by overhead.

Bruce swiveled his chair away from the screen and realized that across the table, Sarah had done the same thing. She’d been watching the same segment. He wondered if he looked as perplexed as she did.

“Do you want to step out for some fresh air?” he asked.

“Yes, that sounds great.” She pushed to her feet and grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair, pulling it on.

Dunn didn’t bother to tighten his tie or put on his coat. He just said a couple of words to one of their group and hurried to catch up with Sarah as she left the room. It had been his suggestion to step out, but she appeared more eager to get out of here than he was.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked, once they were out of the conference room.

“Outside,” she said, never slowing down as they headed toward the elevators.

“I have my car keys.”

“Good. I don’t care where we go, but I need to get away from this place. Even just for a few minutes.”

His mind immediately moved into the gutter, for the first thing that ran through his mind was taking her back to his apartment. Actually, he’d thought that every time he’d seen her at one function or another. Not that she’d even noticed him. He pushed away the ridiculous thought. He certainly had never had the opportunity of getting her attention.

They shared the elevator with four other people, so neither said a word until they were out of the building and walking to the parking lot.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she blurted when they were out of earshot of every one else. “Nothing makes sense.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking her by the elbow to hold her back as a car sped past in the parking lot.

“Thank you for what?”

“For speaking my sentiments. You must be reading my mind.”

They reached his car, and he opened the door for her. But she stood there, staring at him. “Are you pulling my leg, Commander Dunn?”

“Hold on. Let’s not start with formality now. It’s Bruce. And no, I’m dead serious. There’s definitely something out of whack with this case.”

She got in. Bruce hurried around the car and got behind the wheel. He turned on the engine and stared ahead, trying to decide where to go.

“I don’t know where to start—”

“Wait,” he interrupted.

He couldn’t explain it, but after a career of military service, he was suddenly feeling a little paranoid. The sense that someone might be listening in on their conversation. It would be easy for someone to plant a bug in his car. He’d learned long ago to trust his instincts.

“Wait until we can compare notes.”

He pulled out of the parking spot and headed for the exit. Sarah didn’t require any explanations. Bruce sensed that she understood. Outside of the parking lot, he took couple of quick turns.

“Where are we going?”

“Arlington Cemetery.” He saw her smile. “What?”

“I would have picked the same place.”

Bruce checked the rearview mirror before giving Sarah another side glance. He saw her look in the side mirror, too. They had more in common than both of them had realized. And he figured this was what happened when you planted the seed of suspicion. Nothing was safe. No one was to be trusted.

“I know why I was picked to work on this case,” she said to him. “Why were you?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“There had to be something,” she insisted.

“Although it was a long time ago, I did one tour of duty on a 688-class sub. Actually, it as about a zillion years ago. Right after that, I transferred into Intelligence. And I have headed a few NCIS cases.” Dunn would have liked to think that his stellar career put him head and shoulders above everyone else who might have been given this assignment, but he wasn’t that naïve. “I can think of at least half a dozen people out there who are better qualified for this specific case.”

“More submarine experience?”

Bruce looked up at the sky as an Air Force fighter jet made a maneuver overhead. “Yes, every one of them.”

“Do you know or have you ever met Darius McCann?” she asked.

“Know him, like a friend? No. Know of him? Yes. Have I ever met him? Yes. In fact, the one time that I met him was at a function where you were in his company.”

“I was?” She sounded surprised.

He flashed his ID at two armed soldiers standing at the entrance to the Arlington National Cemetery and drove up through the rolling lawns and gray and white stone monuments. The grounds were covered with yellow leaves, although there were still quite a bit of brightly colored foliage in the trees. He pulled over at a spot overlooking the Potomac River.

“You were attending a reception at Annapolis,” he told her. “We weren’t introduced, though. While McCann and I spoke, you were talking to some admiral.”

“I ignored you?”

“No, the old geezer pulled rank.”

She turned around fully to face him. “How many years ago was that?”

“Two, maybe two and a half.” He wasn’t going to say any more, or she’d be scared shitless. Exactly two years and two months ago. It was the first time he’d seen her. The event had been a cocktail party that was held after a speech at the Naval Academy. Bruce could provide more details about the longer length of her hair and how she wore flat shoes and that her hand had barely dropped from McCann’s arm that night. But he decided not to share any of that.

He also decided not to tell her what he’d thought that night — and still thought — Darius McCann was one lucky son of a bitch.

Suddenly, his sports car seemed a little small. He needed some air to get that tempting scent of her out of his head.

“Let’s walk.”

She nodded, not waiting for him to come around to open the door. They met in front of the car. The air was brisk and the earthy smell of autumn was strong.

“Will you be warm enough like that?” she asked him.

“Hey. I’m a tough guy.”

She smiled and he had to force himself to keep his hands at his sides. She wasn’t wearing a hat, and the wind had her hair dancing in every direction. He guessed the strands were silky soft.

They walked for a few paces in silence before she spoke. “Would you like to go first, or would you like me to?”

“You start,” he said.

She looked around them. There were no school children, no tourists, no families. The guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier stood at their post some two hundred yards away. The sky and the trees and the graves of countless American heroes were their only witnesses.

“Do you know Kevin Barclay was engaged this past summer?” she asked.

Bruce nodded. He’d seen it in the young man’s file this morning.

“He and his fiancée were picking out china patterns two weekends ago,” she continued. “He was helping her make the guest list for the wedding they have scheduled for next summer. I don’t mean to sound sentimental, but the hijacking of Hartford this morning had to be in the works for awhile. So why bother? Why go through the paces of wedding planning?”

“You’re absolutely right,” Bruce told her. “He doesn’t fit the profile for a member of a conspiracy that, at best, will require that he disappear out of the country. And he’s not the only one.”

She put her back to the wind; the breeze blew her hair into her face. “Who else?”

“I don’t know how a young man like Paul Cavallaro could be part of the conspiracy. The guy comes from three generations of navy officers,” Bruce told her. “He has two uncles and five cousins who are all in service today. His grandfather was a Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient and his father received the Navy Cross from President Nixon. Their entire family has ‘Property of Navy’ tattooed to the soles of their feet.”

“And yet, you sound like you’re certain he’s in league with the perpetrators,” Sarah said.

“He’s got to be, but I don’t know how he could.” Bruce stopped near a grave of a twenty-two year old who’d died in Vietnam. He looked up at Sarah. “Three days ago, Paul Cavallaro told his wife that some special duty was coming down. He told her it didn’t matter what they told her — everything was fine, and she shouldn’t worry.”

“When did you find this out?”

“About half an hour ago. One of our agents was able to talk to her. The young woman is seven months pregnant, and she’s a total mess, worrying over her husband.”

“They were being deployed. What kind of special duty?”

“She thought he was talking about some kind of promotion.”

Sarah rubbed her arms and rocked back on her heels. “It doesn’t make sense. These are clean, straight, all-American kids. Why, all of a sudden, would they be tempted to flip?”

“Exactly my point,” Bruce said. “With the exception of two crew members, I can give you a similar story about the devotion of every one of the men who were left on Hartford. These aren’t the kind of sailors who threaten to bomb their own people and tear their country apart.”

The breeze was picking up. Bruce saw Sarah rub her arms again. She started walking. He fell into step.

“Which two?” she asked.

“Juan Rivera, a torpedo man, and Michael Dunbar, who works in the galley.”

“And Darius McCann?”

He shook his head. “It’s impossible. Other than the ridiculous ancestry issue that Smith brought up, and that the media is feeding on, there’s nothing in McCann’s records that indicates he would go over.”

Bruce didn’t think Sarah realized it, but her sigh was audible. He gave her a quick side glance. She was watching her step as they walked along the path between fields of white grave markers.

“He’s a lucky man.”

Her blue eyes rounded as she turned to him. “What do you mean?”

“McCann,” he said simply. “You really care about him.”

“I care about his honor,” she said tensely. “I know what he’s stood for all his years in the navy, serving our country. It hurts to think that there’d be the slightest doubt about his allegiance.”

He didn’t say anything.

“If you were in his position and they asked your ex-wife to investigate your involvement in a situation like this, don’t you think she’d defend you if she believed in your innocence?” she asked.

He didn’t know what Claire would do, other than go to her father. Dunn looked down at the tips of his polished shoes. He was being unfair. He and Claire had their differences, but she was as much navy as any military brat. The navy’s code of honor was engrained in her as much as it was in her father or her brother who’d chosen that way of life.

“Yes, she would defend me,” he admitted.

He could see that some of the tension had drained from her face.

“Thank you.”

He grinned.

The wind had picked up. The temperature was dropping. Sarah pushed her hair out of her face and glanced back toward the car.

“By the way,” she said, “I agree with your suspicions about Dunbar. There’s nothing out there on him that’s meaningful. Nothing personal that gives a glimpse of the kind of person he might be. As many pages as I looked through, he’s just as innocuous as a brick in a wall. There’s nothing in his file that distinguishes him. Nothing that draws your eye positively or negatively.”

“Right. Nothing about Dunbar says he’s connected to any community.” He moved to Sarah’s left to block the wind for her as they walked. “In the case of Rivera, it’s the other way around. Too much baggage. He’s gone through some real tough times, this past couple of years.”

“It appears he was seriously affected by the death of his mother.”

“His girlfriend filed assault and battery charges against him but later dropped them. He was into roughing her up. He got busted for a DWI and a number of lesser charges. He’s been on a self-destruct path for a while now, but everyone around him has been trying to be understanding because of his mother.”

Sarah looked around again. Their arms touched as they walked. “We didn’t come out here because of Dunbar and Rivera, did we?”

“No,” Bruce said honestly.

The intensity of her eyes struck him when they turned on him. “Do you feel it, too?”

He didn’t want to tell her exactly what he was feeling.

“You mean that feeling of being snowed under with information?”

“Like they’re using us as puppets to push lots of paper around and pop the right questions every now and then,” she clarified.

“Well put,” Bruce agreed.

“We have a qualified group of investigators and law enforcement agencies and the CIA and everyone else helping us. But where are the top submarine experts?” she asked. “The ones who know that Systems A and B were installed in which submarine and that only Captains X, Y, Z were trained to operate them?”

“That’s a good point. And I don’t bring that level of expertise to the investigation.”

She put a hand on his arm. “I’m not denigrating what you do bring to the investigation, Commander.”

“I didn’t take offense at what you said, at all. And it’s Bruce.” He regretted when Sarah pulled back her hand. “But I’ll tell you the truth. I’m still at a loss for a motive.”

Sarah nodded. She looked back in the direction of the car. “There’s one thing that keeps nagging at me.”

“What’s that?”

“We’ve talked about it before,” she said. “It’s no secret that there are a lot of countries and political groups in the world that hate us right now. But if they’ve hijacked that submarine to do serious damage, then why haven’t they done it already. Why all this song and dance? Why are they playing hide and seek? Why not make the ultimatum for two hours, rather than twenty-four? They’re not dealing with some poor schmuck who has to pry money out of a rich uncle. We’re talking about the United States government, with cash by the ton at the ready.”

“I can’t have any answers to that,” Bruce told her, taking her by the arm and starting toward the car. He could tell she was cold by the way she leaned against him. “But it’s good to get these things out in the open.”

“I think so, too. In fact, I’m feeling better.”

“Not me. Not yet,” he replied. “I feel like we’re either working on this case too late, or too soon. We’re neither in a position of stopping anything, nor are we really in a position to start building a case to prosecute. There’s only one thing that needs to be done right now, and that’s making a preemptive strike on that submarine.”

She listened, but clearly had doubts about his suggestion. “That would result in a lot of fatalities.”

“True. But if we don’t stop them, the number of fatalities will be much higher,” Bruce said. “And I’ll tell you what’s nagging at me. President Hawkins has established himself as a warrior. To wait eight hours and still not issue the order to have them blown out of the water doesn’t ring true to me.”

She shook her head and chuckled. “Now, that’s some good venting. You must be feeling better.”

“Not yet.” He really didn’t. There was still something more that he couldn’t put his finger on. Something else that he couldn’t quite see. “But I’m working on it.”

“Tell you what,” she said. “When we get back to the Pentagon, I buy the coffee and cinnamon donuts at the Center Court. Would that make you feel any better?”

Bruce wanted to touch the smile that was tugging on her full lips. He’d skip the donuts for a taste of that. “That wouldn’t hurt my mood any.”

“Good,” Sarah said cheerfully. She casually looped her arm through his. “But could we walk faster? I’m freezing.”

He had no jacket on to offer. And he didn’t get a chance to make a joke about it, either, because his cell phone rang. He looked at the display.

“It’s the Pentagon,” Bruce told her before answering. “They found us.”

Seth was on the line. He relayed the bad news. Admiral Meisner wanted them back at the office.

“What is it?” Sarah asked as soon as he ended the call.

“Hartford has fired more torpedoes.”

“Where?” she asked, lengthening her steps to match his as they headed for the car. “Who did they fire on?”

“You know the exploratory rigs the oil companies — with the president’s backing — put in Long Island over the environmentalists’ squawking?”

“They fired torpedoes at that? The rig isn’t even operational yet.”

Bruce shrugged. “Forget about everything we said before. The President burned a lot of political capital on that project. Those bastards just made the biggest mistake of their life. Hawkins will definitely blow them out of the water now.”