“Shit. Shit. Shit, ” Julie muttered, shaking her head. “I should have spoken up way earlier.”
“Well, you had something to lose, didn’t you, Midshipman Markham?” Hall said. “He told us about the video.”
“What video?” Ev asked, sitting up in his chair. Hall didn’t answer, but he looked at Julie expectantly.
She took a deep breath. “After that weekend in Charlottesville, Dyle sent me a video clip over the Academy intranet. Somebody at the party had filmed everything. I guess you could say I was the star. Dyle said he’d put it on the Web unless I did what he wanted.”
“When did he do this?” Branner asked softly.
“The clip came right after the UVA weekend,” Julie said. “Come to think of it, that was probably where my underwear went adrift. But the threat to put it on the Web was yesterday morning. He called it my ‘graduation present.’”
“Sweet,” Branner said.
“Where’s the video?” Ev asked.
“No one knows,” Jim said. He was watching Julie’s face, but she just shook her head.
“And that’s how he was able to take you prisoner this morning?” Branner asked.
Julie nodded. “I stewed about it all day and all night. Especially after having to run away from Bancroft Hall last night.” She flashed her father a quick look but then faced away again. “Then when I heard that something huge had happened down in the tunnels, I figured it must have to do with goddamned Dyle. I went to his room, but he wasn’t there. So I waited. A long time. But he didn’t come back. Thirty minutes before reveille, I gave up, went back to my room.”
“And there he was?”
“And there he was. All dressed out in his jarhead costume. He put a knife to my throat, said he’d stick Mel if I made a sound. She was asleep in her rack, right there, next to us. He pulled me out into the passageway and put a pillow-case over my head and taped it. After that, I don’t know where we went, but we ended up on the roof. That much, I could tell. Right as morning meal formation was going down, he started screaming crazy shit down into the court. Now I know what Hitler sounded like.”
“Where’s Booth now?” Liz asked.
“We think he escaped back down into the tunnels,” Hall said. “The old part, the Fort Severn magazines. Way down there, under Lejeune Hall. But we also think they collapsed while he was down there. Knowing what we know about those tunnels, we suspect he’s dead.”
Julie just nodded. “Good,” she said. “Dyle needed to be dead. Hell, I think he wanted to be dead.”
“The final part of our meeting with the heavies was about you, Midshipman Markham,” Hall said.
“Oh, I can just imagine,” she said. “Four valiant years, down the tubes.” She looked over at Ev. “Sorry to disappoint you, Dad. Almost made it.”
Ev really wanted to get up and hold her, but Hall was shaking his head.
“Actually, I think you’re going to be all right,” he said. “There’s maybe something you didn’t know: Booth gave you a roofie that night at UVA.”
Julie just stared at him.
“What’s a roofie?” Ev asked.
“Rohypnol,” Branner said. “The date rape drug. A tasteless, odorless, clear liquid you put in the girl’s drink and she’s all yours, all inhibitions gone, and, what’s even better, she won’t remember a thing.”
“Holy shit.”
“He said that? He slipped me a roofie?”
“Did you get tested afterward?” Branner asked. “Anyone do a rape kit on you? Blood test?”
Julie shook her head. “I thought it was all me, getting drunk, letting it happen. Just once, in four years, letting go, totally losing control. That was the Dyle effect. And let me tell you, I dreaded that commissioning physical exam like the end of the world.”
“Well then, you had no way of knowing,” Branner said. “But he told Mr. Hall here that he gave you a roofie. Put it in your drink. You never would have noticed until the next morning, when I’m sure you did notice.”
Julie blushed but then nodded. “I was so damned ashamed-of myself, of Dyle, even. Everything they teach us here…”
“Well, like I said, I think this is going to come out all right for you,” Hall said. “The commandant does not view your mentoring Dell as a serious conduct offense. And the fact that you weren’t entirely forthcoming in the NCIS investigation can be justified by the grotesque blackmail Booth was running. They’re working on an official version of events, but your part in it is going to get sanitized. A lot.”
“Why are they doing this?” Julie asked.
“Because you really didn’t do anything so very wrong, Julie,” Hall said. “You tried to help some poor plebe who was barely afloat, and in the process you crossed paths with a sadistic monster who had fooled the system, big-time. I think they’re more than a little embarrassed about that too.”
“But I lied when I said I didn’t know Brian very well!” she said. “That’s-”
“Understandable, given the circumstances. Before this morning’s events, Booth was already responsible for two other deaths. If it hadn’t been Brian, it may well have been someone else. We think he was getting a taste for it. And what he did last night in the tunnels was absolutely homicidal.”
Julie shivered. “When he hung me out that window, I thought it was all over. But then he said we’d go together when the time was right.”
“Sometimes things work out,” Hall said.
“So it’s finished?” Ev asked. “She can graduate?”
“As best I can tell, unless she blows an exam or two.”
Julie blinked and then put a hand to her mouth. “I want to go home, Dad,” she said, finally facing Ev. “I think I want a big sleeping pill and twelve hours to enjoy it.”
Ev stood up, more than happy to oblige. “When does she have to be back?”
“They said Sunday night, eighteen hundred,” Hall said, also standing. “Agent Branner will want to get a written statement for the record, but she can do that early next week. Why don’t you take her home, Prof? We’re gonna secure, too. It’s been a long damned night and day.”
Ev gathered up his jacket and shoes, put his arm around Julie, and escorted her off the boat. He told Liz he’d call her later, and she just smiled and waved. He hoped, as they went up the pier, that the smile was a good sign. He was vastly relieved at the outcome of the meeting in Bancroft Hall and that Julie was going to graduate after all. But in ten days’ time, she’d be on her way to Pensacola, and he still had no damned idea of what he was going to do then.
Jim watched them go as darkness settled on the marina, and then he and Branner got ready to leave. Branner unsuccessfully stifled a huge yawn as she went over to the railing and began putting on her shoes. Liz DeWinter came over as Markham and his daughter passed out of sight around the clubhouse building.
“Okay,” she said, looking up at him. “How’d you really manage all that?”
“Manage what, counselor?” he asked innocently.
“Getting my client out of the shit. As all you boat-school types have told me repeatedly, they take that honor code very seriously over there.”
“Oh, that,” Jim said, teasing her just a little until he saw Branner giving him that range-finding look over Liz’s shoulder. “Well, a certain captain, who shall forever go nameless, walked right into my little standoff with Booth on the fourth deck up there. Booth held this officer in somewhat low regard. He emptied a forty-five all around said individual, who was at the time attempting to find that fabled route to the Indies right through the center of the earth.”
“And?”
“And he may have pissed his pants. Just a little.”
“Just a little?”
“Well, perhaps more than a little. Think lake.”
“Ah.”
“Yes. And as he was winding himself up this afternoon to unleash the Honor Committee and the Brigade investigators and all the rest of the ethics and morality mafia, I called for a coffee break and had a private word, during which he and I reviewed certain aspects of the incident that had not yet reached the public domain.”