Indy sat silent.
“All right,” said Jackson. “Information has come to me,” he paused again, then continued, “that there’s an incident file on this whole thing buried somewhere at SOCOM. I want that file.”
“That will not be easy.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” said Jackson. “Meanwhile please don’t share any of this with anyone.”
“Of course,” said Indy. “Shall I update Commander Angler?”
Jackson hesitated.
He hadn’t yet told the others about his meeting with Finn, and now he realized why. Because they would think he was crazy for even entertaining the idea. More specifically, because Scott would think that. Scott had been so quick to judge the SEAL, right from the start, and that concerned Jackson. He worried that the JAG officer might respond to this news with a knee-jerk conclusion that Chief Finn must be their killer.
Which Jackson was not yet prepared to believe.
Besides, Jackson had his own suspicions, and they pointed in a different direction. A disturbing thought had nagged at him ever since hearing Mac’s first scenario. The one with the “misogynistic bigot.”
“No,” he said. “I’ll talk with Scott.”
Indy nodded and got to her feet. Turned to go.
“Indy? One more thing?”
She turned back.
“Can you also get me whatever you can pull up on Commander Papadakis?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Ah.” She paused. “So, going with hypothetical number one?”
“Just following the leads.”
“Wow,” said Indy. “Okay.” She thought for a moment. “They’re not adding on extra security yet, are they?”
“They are not,” Jackson agreed. “The captain doesn’t believe there’ll be ‘any further episodes.’ ”
“What do you think?”
What he thought was that this was day six, and his crew was in danger.
He rubbed his hand over the close-shaven dome of his head and got to his feet as well. “I think it’s gonna be a long night.”
All that night Jackson patrolled. Walking, watching, listening.
As he walked he thought about Sister Mae and her shell figurines and voodoo accessories, her foul teas and tinctures, her stories of the Chupacabra, the Grunch, and the Rougarou, and how he would run into his momma’s room in the middle of the night, having worked himself into a terror.
He thought about Nikos Papadakis and that confrontation Lieutenant Halsey had described, how rattled she said Lieutenant Shiflin was. Like she was being stalked.
He thought about Chief Finn. Damaged goods.
Mostly he walked, watched, and listened.
At 0600, reveille sounded. Jackson stood stock-still for another minute, craning his ears, dreading the sound of five long whistle blasts on the bosun’s pipe.
Finally he let his breath out, not realizing he’d been holding it.