“The albatross?”
“Yessir. The, um, albatross. The sun started to go down, and they packed up. But I didn’t want to leave. You never get to be alone. So I stayed. And it got dark. Finally I got everything packed up and I left too. I was going down the port side, in through there, in my flip-flops, carrying my blanket—”
“Go on,” Dan said, though from the exec’s bouncing leg and the Terror’s averted gaze he had an idea what was coming.
“Anyway, somebody… grabbed me, there, inside the helo hangar passageway, and pulled me behind the darken ship curtains. Where they fold against the bulkhead. And put a knife to my throat—”
“A knife?” Dan repeated. “A knife?”
“That’s what I said. I felt it — it was fucking sharp, too.” The petty officer gulped and straightened. “He pulled me behind the curtain, there, and felt me up. Stuck his hand under my top, and down the back of my — bottoms.”
“I see. Was there actual—”
“There wasn’t,” Staurulakis said, flat-faced. “We already discussed that.”
“I see. Well… then what?”
“I felt him… jerking off. Then he whispered in my ear to stay there for five minutes, or he’d cut me when I wasn’t expecting it. In the mess line, or wherever.” She took a deep breath. “So I did. And got myself back together, then came—”
“Then came to me,” Staurulakis said. “You did exactly right, Beth.”
Dan cleared his throat. “That’s right, Terror. You didn’t mention this to any of the other girls? En route? Straight here, to the exec’s cabin?”
“I asked Donnie where the exec was. He said, probably in the combat passageway, observing eight o’clock reports. But I didn’t tell him why I wanted her.”
“Where did you see Wenck?” Staurulakis asked.
“On the way down to berthing. I would’ve come right here, ma’am, but I was still in my swimsuit and—”
Dan said, “Exec, we need the chief master-at-arms in on this. Terror, you said he, um, hand-jobbed himself. Did anything get on you? On your suit, or your blanket?”
“I didn’t look.”
“We need to sequester them, inspect for semen.”
The exec murmured, leg slowing a bit, “Yessir, we can do that. But about the master-at-arms…”
“What about him?”
“Can we, um, talk offline?”
Out in the passageway, door closed, Staurulakis murmured, “Toan’s not going to be that interested. You heard them, when we took Peeples to mast over what he said to Scharner.”
“Oh, he’ll be interested,” Dan said. “This isn’t verbal harassment. Calling somebody a kunk, or whatever it was. This is assault with a deadly weapon. A threat of bodily harm. If he doesn’t take this seriously, I’ll recalibrate him. I won’t have my sailors terrorized. Also, I want to know where Peeples was during the picnic and afterward. Who he was with. And if he owns a knife.”
“All right, sir.” The exec hesitated, then added, “But you have to realize, just about everybody on the ship owns a knife.”
“I asked whether he owns one, XO.” He nodded toward the door.
Back in the stateroom, Dan told Terranova, “Okay, we’re going to get the sheriff up here, fill him in on what happened. He’ll take an official statement. Anything else you can remember, Terror? What he smelled like? Was he big? Fat? Thin? Could you tell what uniform he had on?”
“I couldn’t tell much… I was sort of in shock… and he was behind me, feeling me up, and we were behind the darken ship curtains, with the door closed. The lights were off.”
He was turning to go, but halted. “Wait a minute… the door was closed, but the lights were off?”
“Yessir.”
Staurulakis was frowning too. “But when the doors giving onto the main deck open, the lights automatically go off. And on again, when they close. You’re sure the vestibule light was off?”
“Check and see if the switch was broken, or maybe fucked with,” Dan said, then immediately regretted the last phrase. “I mean, interfered with. If so, this wasn’t spur-of-the-moment. It was planned.”
Staurulakis said she’d check it out with the compartment petty officer. Dan hesitated, was contemplating where this could go, when she said, “Shouldn’t we add some… horsepower to this, Captain? To, you know, help the chief master-at-arms with the investigation?”
“Um, I guess so,” he said reluctantly. Remembering ex-USS Gaddis, the mutilations and murders that had followed her from port to port. And how fruitless his own investigations had been, and why. “What d’you suggest?”
“A joint investigation. Chief Toan and a female officer. Somebody sharp. With an inquiring mind. Say… Lieutenant Singhe.”
“Amy,” Dan said slowly. True, she was one of the keenest minds aboard. On the minus side, she’d already estranged the senior enlisted, and something like this could get messy fast. “Okay, but warn her not to play bull in the china shop… throw around blanket accusations, accuse people of sexism, et cetera. This is an assault investigation, not a chance to work an agenda. Or write her next article.”
Staurulakis nodded, and Dan patted Terranova’s shoulder. “We’ll get this asshole, Terror. Like the XO says, you did the right thing, reporting it. But just for the present… try to stay with your friends, or in your work spaces. No more hanging out alone.”
The exec’s expression made him feel as if he’d just said something wrong. He was about to try again when Staurulakis’s Hydra beeped. “XO, OOD. Know where the captain is? I buzzed his at-sea cabin and tried his Hydra, but no joy.”
“He’s here with me.”
A hesitation.”Discussing ship’s business,” Staurulakis added in an icy tone.
“Yes ma’am. Commander, just tell him we have USS Pittsburgh, reporting in VHF voice.”
The exec double-clicked. “Did you get that, Captain?”
He nodded. Youngblood was early; the sub wasn’t supposed to join up until tomorrow. And the day after, they’d start the exercise, though he’d barely glanced at the op order.
But that wasn’t his major problem. Not now. As of today, he had a molester in the crew, one not afraid to use a knife. And every male was a suspect.
Just fucking great. He only hoped they could find him before Singhe split the crew down the middle.
He climbed heavily back to his sea cabin, undressed again, coughing, limbs feeling like waterlogged wood and his eyelids lead-loaded. He rolled into his bunk. Then stared at the overhead, his anxiety program rebooting. He rolled over, snapping it off. Remember the albatross. The castaways they’d rescued. Both seemed like good omens. Maybe they’d find the molester. Lock him down, get him off the ship. It could happen.
The creak and sway of a seaway, the muffled voices, the hiss of radios, faded. And gradually, imperceptibly, he became one once more with the blackness that surrounded them all.
III
IO
10
Several days later, and five hundred miles farther out. Monsoon season still, with sealed-off skies and growing seas. Pittsburgh was in company, making three units under his tactical command. His empire would be short-lived, though. Carl Vinson was on its way, to join up en route to the Malabar exercise area. U.S. participants would be Savo, Mitscher, Pittsburgh, Vinson, an oiler, Tippecanoe, plus antisubmarine aircraft out of Djibouti and Jamnagar. Mills and Staurulakis had put together an exercise package to get them spun up, and sonar runs with the sub would feel out the hydrography of the western Indian Ocean.