No other explanation seemed forthcoming. I watched Campbell’s shoulders rise and fall as he took several deep breaths.
“Did you find the keys?”
“What?” he said, turning around, the words “the fuck are you talking about?” hanging unsaid in the air between us. Then his impatience melted into understanding and relief that I had changed the subject. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I found ’em.”
He dug in one of his front pockets for a moment, then tossed me a silver ring with four keys on it.
“Good work,” I said, taking a step toward him. “I think this is going to help us figure out a lot of what happened and what’s going on now.”
“You want to go back upstairs?”
“Yeah. I’ll see what I can find in the captain’s safe.” I reached out and touched his shoulder, resting my fingertips on the coarse material of his sweater. “We’re going to figure this out. OK? And whoever killed Martin… they’re not going to get away. Once we have some more answers, we won’t just have to sit here anymore. We can act, be the aggressor.”
I was in a bizarre world where a trained killer twice my size needed to be comforted. But Campbell seemed heartened. His face had regained some of its color.
“Let’s go. Stay behind me,” he said, stepping into the galley.
He first scrutinized the right side of the room, the eating area, then turned his attention to the opposite wall. The bunks, some of which still were shrouded by thick curtains, seemed to worry him. The barrel of his rifle moved with his head, ready to spray bullets into anything that threatened us.
I followed a few steps behind. I swept my gaze over the bodies still piled among the tables and cooking area. The neat stacks fit with the ambiance of the rest of the submarine: everything was in its place, and no space was wasted. Even populated with dead people, the room seemed neat and ready for inspection.
The refrigerator and pantry doors glittered, reflecting the bulbs spaced across the ceiling. The stove range was crumb-free, all the pots and pans stowed in some cabinet. The sink was devoid of even a stray droplet of water. The oven was… full?
“Campbell, hold on.”
He crouched and brought his rifle to bear on the opposite side of the room, and instead of diving for cover, I channeled the burst of terror into a single blink. My muscles quivered with the effort.
“What?” he said.
“I think… there’s something in the oven.”
“In the oven? Hiding?” He gestured for me to stay where I was and moved sideways, staying in a crouch, keeping his weapon’s front sight on the oven door. When he was about ten feet away, he spoke again. “It’s a person. I can see hair.”
I could make out that detail too, now. The back of someone’s head was pressed against the rectangular glass window in the oven door.
Campbell crept closer. I stopped breathing. Each beat of my heart seemed to betray the SEAL’s stealth. When he was an arm’s length away from the oven, he reached for the door handle, keeping his right hand on the trigger.
Hooking one finger on the handle, he yanked it and hopped back. “Don’t move! Don’t move!”
An arm flopped out, and I thought I could hear the gun firing, could see the bullets’ impacts on the person crammed inside the oven. But Campbell didn’t shoot. I saw why: There was no volition behind the arm. It was limp.
“Oh, shit. Ohshitohshitohshit. Christine, come over here.”
Campbell stood up, his rifle falling a degree at a time until it dangled by its strap, pointed at the floor. His shoulders slumped, and I’m sure he didn’t realize his mouth was hanging open. The expression made him look like the teenager he probably was.
The racks had been removed from the oven. In the resulting space-about the same size as two side-by-side milk crates, but deeper-was a person. All we could see was his back, which was clad in black. The head was facing away from us, and one arm was tucked out of sight. The other still lolled out the oven door. I could tell from the bizarre angle at which it hung that the shoulder had been separated or dislocated.
I could see no movement in the figure’s torso.
“Campbell. Campbell. Brandon, are you there? You with me?” I watched the SEAL straighten, his green eyes focusing on my face. “I need you to help me get this guy out.”
“Out?”
“He’s wedged in pretty good. If we can get his upper body out, we can pull him the rest of the way.”
Campbell stepped forward and hooked his hands into the armpits of the body-it was a body, there was no way this guy was alive-and tugged. As I had predicted, the torso came free, and once it did, Campbell’s momentum caused him to pull it the rest of the way out.
“Miller,” he said.
I recognized the SEAL, too. His face was peaceful, eyes closed, unmarred by injury.
It was a remarkable contrast to the rest of his body, which had been folded and contorted like a cherry stem. His shins were snapped, the lower legs telescoped toward the knee. His right arm was shattered by more fractures than I could count. The man’s back seemed to be in about the same shape.
Miller’s neck was discolored, a purple half-circle betraying the method of his death.
“Strangled. From the front. He was dead before they did this to him. Campbell? He was already dead.”
The SEAL stood next to me, blinking, his fists clenching and unclenching.
“We need to tell Larsen,” I said. “Hey! Brandon!”
I had seen mutilated bodies before. Political prisoners and drug informers tortured until they could only be identified by dental records. What we had found in the oven was, to me, shocking in its circumstances, not its appearance. Campbell, however, seemed paralyzed by the crumpled heap on the floor.
“Larsen?” he said, still not looking at me.
I stepped between him and the body.
“Yes, Larsen. Look at me!” I said. “You need to pull it together. Your commanding officer should be apprised of the situation so you and your platoon can react and respond.”
I had hoped the commanding tone and military jargon would slap him back into awareness, or at least allow him to let his training take over. He stopped blinking, and I could see his pupils contract as he focused on me.
“Shit. Where’s the…?” He glanced around the room, looking for something. His gaze landed on the speaker box next to the aft hatch, and he walked over to it. “Control room, galley. We’ve found Miller. He’s dead. Lieutenant Larsen, I think you should come down here.”
“Roger,” came the reply.
The crisp, businesslike exchange made the world seem a little more normal.
“What the hell is going on?” he said, remaining by the door.
“I don’t know. I think Larsen’s going to want an answer, too, and at this point there’s nothing I can tell either of you. Miller was overpowered, strangled. It might have been a sneak attack, but… hey… where is his gun?”
“What do you mean?”
“His rifle. It’s not strapped to him.” I crouched down, ignoring the corpse as I stared into the oven’s black interior. “Toss me your flashlight again.”
Its beam answered my question. The gun was lying against the oven’s back wall.
“Never mind. The rifle’s in here. But… odd.”
Campbell joined me as I trailed off. “What’s odd?”
“Whoever did this took the time to remove Miller’s weapon from his body, then stash it in the back of the oven. But why didn’t they just take it? Wouldn’t having a gun be an asset if you were trying to sabotage a submarine or kill its crew?”
“Goddamn, it doesn’t look like they need a fucking gun.”
“No, Campbell, think from a military point of view. You’re a soldier.