Inside, two more Marines were silently up on steel chairs with screwdrivers in hand, reattaching grills to ventilation shafts that hung between the two single beds on opposite sides of the room, both crisply made. A lance corporal was going through the two upright steel lockers with a meter detector. A private was in the bathroom. My quarters smelled of pine-scented cleaning fluid.
The ceiling was a mass of insulated pipes and bunched multicolored wires.
I said, “I hope the food here is good.”
Major Pettit slid out from under my desk and shook his head. He’d found nothing. I pointed at the screws fixing porthole cover to hull.
A conference room abutting my cabin — which we examined next — held a bolted-down steel conference table and eight metal chairs. There was a topographical map of the sea bottom off Alaska, with areas shaded blue for “U.S. Zone” and yellow for Russian. On the map the Arctic Ocean resembled a jagged lake and its surrounding nations: U.S., Russia, Canada, Norway, Greenland, Iceland, and Sweden.
Major Pettit shook his head. No mikes.
“I saw the menu. Steak tonight,” he said.
In recent years, I knew, voice-activated mikes — Phillips screw tops, minis, or stick-ons — have been recovered in, among other places, the golf bag of the general who runs Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, the Lexus leased by Shell Oil’s head of Alaskan offshore exploration in the Arctic, the sunglasses of a fighter pilot sent out regularly to monitor Russian bear bomber activity off our border, and the laptop computer belonging to a University of Alaska professor advising the U.S. Navy on which ships to build to handle a region with less ice.
It is not known who planted these devices, but the director believes they originated with Russian or Chinese military or commercial — shipping or mining — interests.
I liked the silent concentration with which the Marines moved and used hand signals. I admired the focus on details and the way they operated as a team. I was less pleased with the continued coldness emanating from them. Marines are trained to keep emotions in check, and as it takes one to know one, I was picking up almost minuscule muscle tightness, extra distance in voices, the barest rigidity.
Why? And will it hamper our mission?
“All clear, Colonel,” Pettit said.
“Thank you, Major. Stay a moment.”
The men left. Pettit was a bulky, broad-shouldered blond in his mid-thirties, with deep laugh or frown lines around his mouth, suggesting an inner life of strong emotions. He had thin brows, a boxy face, a strong jaw, and eyes of robin’s egg blue, which somehow lacked the warmth normally associated with that color. He was my height, about six two. He’d done duty in Afghanistan, in winter, where he’d won a Navy Cross and Silver Star after being shot in the thigh and saving two wounded men, carrying them, under fire, to safety. He’d also excelled at joint maneuvers with Norwegian Arctic troops, in Europe.
I fought off a vision of this man in bed with my ex-wife. Stop it!
Now, told to relax, Pettit moved his feet apart slightly, but his back remained straight, wary. Good Marines can broadcast disdain with nothing more than a minuscule adjustment of the spine.
I’d not yet fully briefed him on the mission, as I’d spent my time on the plane reading the files of Wilmington officers, and about the submarine. Now I gave him the bare-bones picture, but unlike Captain DeBlieu, who, upon learning about the sub, was horrified, Pettit gazed directly into my face, as if questioning why of all people I’d been sent to deal with it.
“Major, I’m detecting some issue here, perhaps something you’d care to discuss, affecting the mission.”
He regarded me coolly. “No, Colonel. There’s no issue!”
“Major, my powers of detection are vast, powerful, all seeing, and mysterious, and I believe you meant to say something else. So here’s the deal. What if I told you that for the next two minutes, two only, you could say anything and it will stay between us. Marine to Marine.”
The eyes shifted, came back. He made his decision. “Then, Colonel, I would tell you that I heard a story about you and I would appreciate knowing if it is true.”
The pulse started up in my forehead. I’d thought this was going to be about Nina. I felt hot. “What is that story?”
Those robin’s egg blue eyes went darker now, intelligent, measuring, yet to his credit, I detected hope, so he was fair. “It is that you personally panicked in combat, sir, and blew up a truck carrying nine Marines. That you killed your own men. The incident was hushed up and you transferred out.”
“Where did you hear that story?”
“I’d prefer not to share that, Colonel.”
Another plus for him. My head throbbed. I said, “And?”
“If the story is true, I believe it my duty to tell you that I think you are the worst sort of human being, a disgrace as a Marine officer, and that you should have been cashiered and put on trial. Also, if it is true, I don’t understand why you are in command here.”
“Will these feelings hamper your ability to follow orders, or slow your responses even a fraction of a second if I tell you to do something on this mission?”
He shook his head. “My men and I are good Marines!”
He didn’t need to add the rest, unlike you.
“Then I will inform you that the story you heard is not true.”
The eyes relaxed a little.
I said, staring directly into those pupils, “There were eight Marines on that truck, not nine. And I choose not to explain anything else to you.”
He seemed to be hit by a small force in the back, so that his posture, seemingly perfect before, stretched even higher as his gaze shifted away. I could have lied to him, but I was finished with that. You dominate people with truth as well as falsehoods. Or was it that, like a shrink once told me, I needed to keep punishing myself?
I asked, in a hard voice, “Anything more, Major?”
“Yes.”
I waited. He said, almost reluctantly, “It didn’t come from Nina. She’s never said anything bad about you.”
“Thank you. You will complete sweeps of the captain’s cabin, exec’s, and wardroom. You will make sure the boys get chow, and sleep. You will then map all routes from forward areas to the helo hangar, where we will set up a field hospital. We won’t be carrying a chopper on this trip.”
He exhibited no hint of the animus he had displayed a moment earlier. He saluted and left.
I sat on the bed, slumped, my insides grinding. For a moment I flashed back to the only time I’d ever defied the director. It was in his office in D.C., two months after the killings. He’d sat me down and explained with some pain in his voice that a rumor had gotten out about the incident. He did not want me to be surprised if I heard it on a base, a gathering, or worst case, if I received a call from a reporter. He assured me that he intended to track down the source and prosecute the Marine who had leaked the story.
“After all, Joe, all witnesses were sworn to secrecy. I’ll lock that damned leaker away for so long that—”
“No,” I’d blurted out.
“Joe?”
“I’d appreciate it if you left it alone, sir.”
“Joe, this isn’t just about you. Those people were warned, told what would happen to them if anyone spoke—”
I’d stood up, heart slamming in my chest, my breathing hot, seeing, in my mind, a sand-coated tarp-topped truck racing toward me. I’d said, through pounding in my ears, “Sir, I won’t have anyone punished because of what I did. I don’t care what else is at stake. If you do this, I’ll be the one to go to the papers. Drop the inquiry, now.”