Plus, with the midshipman running back and forth along the halls, it was as if she was asking to die. Almost like she was saying here I am, come and kill me and hurry up about it.
Alexis knew the lower ranks were practically invisible. She'd always been invisible when she'd served. They never cared that she was a person.
The faces behind the hands that patted her ass or grabbed her tits were never looking at her face, that's for sure. They only cared that she could hit the mark every single time at 800, 1200 or 1500 meters. That she had three holes that they could fill on a dark night in the desert.
Thinking about what she'd just done, her jaw clenched and her face got the pinched look of sadness. She sometimes felt pity for the sorrows she caused but remorse was something she felt rarely.
Angry with herself for feeling anything, she let herself cry. Red eyes and puffy cheeks might help her make look more like the dead woman anyway.
She cried for the life she should have had.
She cried for everything that had happened to her during the long dark nights in the desert.
She cried for the empty places in her heart.
But, above all, she cried to get past the pain, to get past feeling anything.
If she was going to survive, she needed to be numb. Numb like her they told her to be during those dark nights in the desert.
She touched a tissue to her eyes, let the tissue soak up her tears and her pain. Seeing her puffy red eyes in the mirror, she smiled.
Done sobbing, she put the tissue in her pocket. She picked up the dead woman's phone and put that in her pocket too. She'd almost forgotten the phone in her haste to do what she needed to do next.
She looked at her watch, almost willing time to hurry toward zero hour.
Calmly, she removed a magnetic sign from a utility cabinet that'd she'd unlocked previously. As she entered the hall, she put the sign on the door to the bathroom. "Closed for Cleaning," it read.
Chapter 15
Scott caught the satellite phone, decided right then the Operations Commander was going to be his new best friend even if he had to part the Mediterranean to make it happen. As he stepped into the hall, he dialed into the Switchboard system-NSA's automated global operations board-and then said, "Authentication: Kilo Whiskey Bravo Tango Five Nine Seven Sierra."
KWBT-597S was a cover code, a sort of dual-purpose self-identification and rapid auto-dial from the field to his handlers at home base. Home base being whatever station he was operating out of. He'd be connected to his handlers as soon as Switchboard authenticated him using the code and voiceprint biometrics.
He waited, holding the heavy satellite phone to his ear, thinking either the system was running slow or no one was home on the other end. But after a long delay, he heard a male voice on the other end saying, "Authentication: Juliet Romeo Eight Five. Encrypted. Unsecure."
JR-85 was his primary handler at the NSA, but Scott didn't need the code to recognize the voice on the other end. He pulled the phone away from his ear just long enough to note there wasn't a row of lit indicator lights on the phone. Three green lights would have indicated a fully secure, encrypted and untraceable connection. The one green light he saw meant that at best the connection was encrypted. He replied with, "Bravo Whiskey Seven Nine. Encrypted. Unsecure."
"Scott?" the voice on the other end asked.
"Keneke," Scott said, as he breathed a sigh of relief. If Keneke was on shift, he'd get real answers instead of "official" answers. "I hope you're settled in to your new position now because I'm calling in every favor. Every last one."
"I've been settled in for over a year," Keneke said. "You're still in the Med, aren't you?"
Scott frowned. "So you've heard?"
"And then some," Keneke replied. "I'm at the Hawaii field station. You know, the aging underground facility you loathe."
"Ah, Christmas in hell," Scott shot back. "Take down these coordinates." He read off the latitude and longitude displayed on the e-wall for the Bardot, the Shepherd and the strike group. "Reach out to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Get the satellite photography within a 100-mile radius of those coordinates for the past 24 hours and keep looking forward for unusual activity."
"Whoa. Slow down," Keneke said. "Scott, I don't know what's happened."
"I thought-wait. What do you mean you don't know what's happened? The Bardot, the Shepherd. They're gone."
"Scott, whatever you're trying to tell me. I'm not sure I should be hearing. There's no chatter to corroborate anything you're saying."
"What?"
"Look, I turned up the Med channels as soon as I took your call. I'm telling you it's dead quiet. Maybe too quiet, if you ask me."
"Since when do you follow official channels?"
"Official, unofficial, all over the place. One big hunk of nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Scott," Keneke said. "I have to ask. Is your cover legend blown? It was a hell-of-a lot of work to get you-"
"Cover legend, to hell. The Shepherd's gone-as in blown up," Scott said, his voice full of pain. "They sank the Bardot too."
Scott heard Keneke typing furiously. "OK. I have one report here stating US Marines were injured during night training exercises but that was from yesterday. That would've been-"
"Sometime early in the morning here. Yes, that's exactly when it started."
"When what started?"
Scott scratched at the stubble on face. "From what you're telling me it sounds like a cover up. This doesn't make any sense. Unknown assailants sank the Bardot III and shot down a Seahawk, then they sank the Sea Shepherd and took out two SEAL squads. Dozens of civilians, lost. Dozens of sailors and marines, lost."
On the other end of the line, Scott heard Keneke suck at the air, followed by a quiet, "Shit, shit, shit." Then Keneke said clearly, "Does this have anything to do with-"
"No," Scott cut in. "I mean, I don't see how. My cover legend was solid and I did not deviate. Not even Edie knew."
"Edie?" Keneke asked.
Scott didn't want to think about Edie right now. He quickly re-focused on the issue at hand. "The cover was solid. I was in deep for months. There were no issues."
Keneke sighed loudly in relief. "This is ugly either way. Where are you and what happened exactly?"
"I'm aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, part of a carrier strike group led by the USS Harry Truman. In the early morning hours, Sea Shepherd came under attack from unknown assailants," Scott said as he started to recap the events of the day. He finished by saying, "Right now, I'm outside Situation Room One."
A long silence followed and Scott impatiently counted off the seconds in his head. Finally, Keneke said, "I'm guessing you need temporary shipboard clearance?"
Scott took a few steps away from the door. "Get me a VIP top security clearance and the next time I see you I will treat you to the biggest Kobe steak you've ever seen in your life."
"I've seen some pretty big steaks… I take it you're having a little command difficulty?"
"You don't know the half of it. They're having a tough time deciding whether to throw me in the brig or sedate me up in the infirmary."
There was a long pause, Scott heard more furious typing, and then Keneke said, "I take it Secure Station Number 5 and Printer Sit 1 are in that room?"
Scott walked back so he could look into the operations room. He looked for a computer with a printer. Positioned near the door was a work area with several computers and a printer. One of the computers was labeled "SS-5."