“Okay, then. Back to Dell.”
“Right. Dell. And Markham.”
“You said you had a plan,” she said. Her face was tightening with the anger he’d been expecting.
“I said I had an idea. Right now, we think Markham is holding back. She’s been able to answer no to every question, which, if she’s playing the honor game, means we haven’t asked the right question.”
“How do we beat that?”
“We get them to convene the Brigade Honor Committee. Bring Markham before the committee. Tell her that we are pursuing the Dell investigation as something other than an accident or suicide. And then ask her, in front of them, if there’s anyone who might want her harmed, who might also have harmed Dell. Remind her that failure to tell the truth now would be an expulsion-level honor offense.”
“Suppose the answer really is no? Or she just lies? Says that no, there isn’t.”
“Then I’d ask her if she’s ever been involved in the Goth scene, either in Annapolis or elsewhere.”
“Again, no, or she lies. What have we accomplished?”
“If she’s telling the truth, we’ve done no harm. If she’s lying, then we’ve put her in the honor box. Either way, what we do then is request that the committee investigate the possibility that there’s something behind the first question. They have to do it if requested.”
“What’s that get us?”
“It gets us behind the blue-and-gold wall. Midshipmen investigating midshipmen, with all the clout of the Honor Committee. Honor offenses are the third rail of conduct offenses. A mid might lie or quibble or evade when we come around asking questions, but no mid would lie to the committee.”
“A liar’s a liar. Why wouldn’t a mid lie to the committee?”
“Because an honor offense is an offense against the entire Brigade. They’ll bend the rules behind the blue-and-gold wall to protect one of their own from what they see as unfair treatment: The little shit. Ten demerits and two hours marching offenses. But they’ll expose an honor offender and push him, or her, right through the wall and into the system’s claws.”
“I’m not sure I understand this.”
“It’s because the system stands for something. Something that’s good and clean and honest and fair. That’s what the honor system is all about. It’s what these kids signed up for when they came here, because it totally distinguishes them from the ‘outside,’ with all its equivocal don’t ask/don’t tell bullshit. The only way they justify the wall is by guaranteeing they’ll draw the line at honor offenses. They’ll play cops and robbers with the officer of the day, or the midshipman officer of the watch, about room inspections, unshined shoes, being two minutes late, after taps high jinks, illegal stereos, nonreg uniform gear, cars in the Yard, even booze in Bancroft Hall-all the game offenses. But not when it comes to honor offenses. And the system accepts that. The Executive Department plays the game with them, for four years. Both sides get pretty good at it. With that one proviso.”
“If they draw the line at honor offenses, how about that example you cited-the guy coming in and seeing his roomie looking at a compromised exam?”
“The last time that happened, a hundred-odd mids went down the tubes. Exposed by their own roommates or classmates.”
Branner thought about it. “There was something else you said, something about the mids always watching. That if they thought the system was playing fuck-fuck, then they would, too, right?”
And now I know why you are the head of this office, Jim thought. “You’re exactly right. The one thing the administration could do to make them all go deep and rig for silent running is to compromise your investigation, say by declaring a desired right answer: This was an accident, or, worse, suicide.”
“But isn’t that what they want to do?”
“Don’t know,” Jim said, wincing inwardly at his own evasion. He knew that was certainly what the dant wanted to do. “But that’s certainly a possibility. If this was indeed a homicide, some hoary cultural tectonic plates are going to tilt around here.”
“So we need to move quickly, then, with this Honor Committee thing.”
“Yeah. I’d suggest you contact the deputy commandant, Captain Rogers, and request that the committee be convened. Tell him what you think about the Dell thing, although I wouldn’t emphasize the possible connection between our runner and the Dell case. Ask him to move on it immediately. Within twenty-four hours. Time is of the essence.”
“Shit,” she said. “Maybe you had the right idea-bring in the Feebs. They love hairballs like this.”
“They’ll push you right out of the room,” he said. “And they’ll never get behind the wall. You have a chance. To solve both incidents.”
“And what about you?” she asked. “What do you get out of this?”
“I owe it to Bagger,” he said. “And if some psychopath made it into this place, I want his ass found and burned, preferably before he gets to the fleet or the Corps.”
She looked at him. “You believe in all this, don’t you? This duty, honor, country stuff?”
“Yes. More of us do than don’t.”
“I wonder,” she said. “Especially when I hear the dant wanting a ‘right’ answer. When the big dogs get their paws around a ‘right answer,’ it’s often best for the little dogs just to go along.”
“That what you expect me to do?” he said, a little anger in his voice.
“Don’t get pissed off. It’s just that if this thing recoils in our faces, you might get burned. I work for NCIS. You work for them. You could find yourself out of a job.”
“Well, Special Agent,” he said as evenly as he could, “you keep telling me it’s a nothing job, right?”
She smiled and said, “Touche.” Then she went to look up Rogers’s phone number. Jim tried to figure out why he was mad. Was he just possibly looking for some payback of his own?
Jim checked in with the PWC before going down into the tunnel at 10:00 P.M. Tuesday evening. He’d previously briefed the chief that he was going to make another recon, and that he was still looking for a direct access between Bancroft Hall and the tunnel complex. The PWC people had been requested to call the chief if Jim didn’t surface within two hours. He’d also asked the chief to alert the Yard police patrols that he was down there, and for them to be alert to any suspicious activities around the principal access gratings in the Yard until midnight.
He first checked the shark graffiti: No changes. The atmosphere in the main tunnels was normal, permeated with the scent of steam and ozone. Some of the burned-out lightbulbs had been replaced, so the light was more homogeneous than before. The door to the King George Street city utility vaults was locked. On the way back, he checked his motion detectors, but they did not appear to have been disturbed.
As he walked through the main tunnel, he realized that the guy might not ever come down here again, the little note on the tennis ball notwithstanding. Assuming it was a firstie who’d been doing this shit, he would have to know they were going to keep trying to catch him. Graduation and commissioning were only days away. Why put all that in jeopardy just to satisfy some macho pride? How about because the guy was a nutcase?
He came to the intersection of the Stribling Walk tunnel and the hinged flaps of the big storm drain leading down to the Severn River seawall. No sign of intrusion there, and besides, half the time the drain’s mouth was underwater. No, this wasn’t the way in. He had to find something that was physically under Bancroft Hall, something bigger than those electrical cableway lines. This guy had been tracking him when he threw the tennis ball. He had to have a direct way back into Bancroft in order to just disappear like that.
After verifying that he was in the vicinity of the Bancroft Hall foundations, he spent the next hour checking out every equipment cabinet, utility vault, steam pipe, and chilled water transfer plenum. Every one of them led into Bancroft somehow, but it was all via cableways, piping bundles, and wire conduits-nothing big enough to accommodate a human. Twice he passed the big oak doors leading down into the buried remains of Fort Severn. He touched the keys in his pocket, knowing he did not really want to revisit that crumbling brickwork anytime soon. He explored the branch tunnels that ran out to Lejeune Hall, the field house, and the city harbor utilities, but the farther he got from Bancroft, the less useful they would have been. He retraced his steps, ready to call it a night. As he passed the oak doors for the third time, he noticed that the gas-free engineering equipment was still there, piled in an alcove across the passageway from the big doors. He stopped.