“Didn’t need you to call back,” he said when the chief picked up. “Just wanted to let you know I was out of the tunnels.”
“It go okay? No bad guys?”
“Not exactly,” Jim said, and told him what had happened. The chief whistled in surprise.
“I wonder if that’s the same guy who trashed those people over in town. That one guy’s still in the hospital.”
“He came up from behind me when I was coming back; I was looking down the tunnel, not behind me. He looked like every vampire I’ve ever seen in the movies, and I have to tell you, that shit stopped me for a second.”
“I haven’t seen any of those since I quit drinking,” Bustamente said.
“Since when did you quit drinking?”
“I mean drinking. Look, I’ll talk to Allan Wells, chief of D’s in town. Tell him what happened. Maybe we can catch this sick fuck.”
“Sick fuck is right. I’m having trouble seeing a mid do this. Dress up, scare people, maybe. But assault and battery on civilians-that’s different.”
“Why don’t you let me handle the reporting side?” Bustamente said. “I’m thinking in particular of Public Works. Those guys who work underground all the time aren’t gonna like this vampire shit.”
“Oh, hell, Chief, it’s some guy playing dress-up.”
“Yeah, but you see what I’m sayin’ here. Those guys who work underground, they tend to be superstitious. We need to be careful. Yard cops start talking vampire shit, ain’t nobody gonna go down there. The Johns’re gonna back up in Mother Bancroft till the end of time, we’re not careful here.”
Jim, grinning in the dark, rolled his eyes. Big mistake: The residual paint came after him in stinging waves. “I need to get this paint out of my face. I’ll stop over at your office in the morning. Oh, hey, I need to talk to you about this jumper case, too.”
“I’ve heard from a second source that this may not be a jumper case.”
“Yeah, that’s what I need to talk to you about.”
6
On Friday morning, Jim stopped by the Academy dispensary to get some help removing the paint from his eyes. The nurse used a vile mixture of stinging substances to dab the last flecks out of his eyelashes. Looking in his rearview mirror when he got back to his truck, Jim decided that he looked like the vampire now. The gate guards gave him a decidedly funny look.
The chief was waiting in his office with tiny cups of espresso coffee ready; he kept a machine right there next to his desk. Jim closed the door and inhaled the strong vapors gratefully.
“Interesting makeup,” Bustamente said. “And if that’s not makeup, there’s lots more coffee. You said you wanted to talk about the Dell incident.”
Jim sipped some coffee and felt his heartbeat quicken almost immediately. “Yeah. I have a mission, directly from the dant.”
“Should you choose to accept it, Jim,” the chief intoned with a perfectly straight face.
Jim tried to give him the fish eye, but his lashes were still sticking. “Not exactly,” he said. He explained what the commandant had asked him to do.
“You ever get close to Branner?” the chief asked. “Now, you wanna talk about your vampire…”
Jim grinned. “I suspect nobody gets close to Branner, other than perhaps her Calvin Kleins.”
The chief grinned back. “You noticed.”
“She lets you look, but I suspect you better not even think about touch. But to answer your question, no, I don’t know her or her sidekick. Young black guy-what’s his name?”
“Special Agent Walter Thompson. Nice kid, plays everything cool and loose, but he’s no dummy. You should see him shoot. Stands there on the range all casual like, kinda bored, holding the nine down along his leg, and then-badda-boom-his target silhouette’s got a see-through heart. Spooky.”
Jim looked over at the chief, but Bustamente waved it off. “I know, you can’t use that word. But Thompson’s cool. Somebody gets racial with Bagger, he can handle it.”
“Bagger?”
The chief shrugged. “That’s how he introduced himself to me. I believe he’s partial to the demon rum.”
“Well, he seems easier to deal with than Branner. I’m thinking of maybe taking this tunnel-runner thing over there. Use that as a back-door way to insinuate myself into the Dell investigation. The dant, of course, is worried about NCIS squawking command influence.”
Bustamente nodded. “If it weren’t for this homicide firefly, I think they’da ruled it a DBM from day one. You know, dumb-ass plebe, screwing around up there on the roof, some kind of plebe year antics, who knows what, falls off. Like that.”
“That’s what the dant thinks, too. He said homicide was ‘inconceivable.’ But even with that, if it wasn’t suicide, they’d feel compelled to chase down whichever upperclassman incited him to go up there. There has to be accountability.”
“There does?” the chief asked, looking skeptical.
“Yeah, there does,” Jim said. “The dant is into damage control, of course, but the supe is ultimately accountable for everyone here. I can’t feature Admiral McDonald sweeping anything under the rug.”
The chief shrugged. “If you say so.”
Hey. It happened. That security guy came downstairs last night. Down to my little world. Playing at setting traps. Only he was the one got himself trapped. And a paint job, too. I left him looking like a black guy trying out for the white guy’s part in one of those vaudeville shows. Introduced him to the joys and power of steam in confined spaces. I studied that at length, segundo year. And, did I say I was in costume? Was. The vampire Dyle. It had the same shock effect on him that it does on the drunks. Just enough to give me a split-second advantage. And trust me, that’s all I need. They say that’s the difference between the fighting abilities of a regular Marine and a recon Marine-about a half second.
But he was waiting for me-of that, I’m certain. So now it’s officially a game. I love games, don’t you? Well, maybe not like I do. Anyway, he’ll be back. And so will I. Only he doesn’t know the tunnels like I do. And he doesn’t have the facilities that I do, either. And now that plebe year’s almost over, I’m going to focus on this guy for my fun. Stay out of town, except for the occasional run for Gothic love. But see if I can seduce this guy to come back down to play again. He has no idea of the things I can do down there. It’s a lot more fun than terrorizing plebes. Although there was one plebe…but I’ll tell you about that later. Or maybe I won’t. Depends on what the Dark Side does about the case. I’m betting they’ll sweep it. What do you think? You think they’ll sweep it? Or maybe they’ll tag somebody for it? If they do, they’ll be so wrong. So very wrong.
Jim met with Agent Thompson right after lunch Friday at the NCIS office. The formidable Agent Branner had gone up to NCIS headquarters at the Washington Navy Yard. She was supposedly on her way back. Thompson showed Jim into a small conference room and offered coffee.
“Coffee’d out, thanks,” Jim said, sliding into a side chair, his ears still ringing from the chief’s espresso. Thompson sat down and raised his eyebrows.
Jim described his recon work of the past few months in the tunnels, presenting a comprehensive picture of what he’d been doing, leaving out only the fact that he had been messing with the tunnel runner’s graffiti. “I didn’t consider this any big deal, beyond the obvious security implications that there were ways into and out of the Yard that just about anybody who knew about them could use.”
“You’ve never caught anyone using the tunnels?” Thompson asked.
“Negative. But there are clear signs that they are being used by someone other than the diggers and fillers. I’ve been assuming that it was just some mids, probably firsties, indulging in some after-hours party times.”
“You go to the Academy?” Thompson asked, eyeing Jim’s big gold ring. He had been taking notes, but he looked up when he asked this question. Jim suddenly felt like a suspect.