Command made an effort to keep the lid clamped down tight, but the story was as uncontainable as an oil spill. Within hours everyone on board knew the basics. No trace of Chavez and Cristobal had been found in the recycling chamber. A half-smoked cigarette; that was it. There was no way the two could have gone over the side; too much extra security that night. For three straight days a crew conducted a lengthy search of the entire boat.
The boys did not turn up.
When the admiral returned and learned what had happened, she immediately got on the horn with the mainland and arranged for them to take on a joint NCIS-FBI task force when they reached Hawaii. The threat of which greatly increased the pressure on Eagleberg—and therefore on Jackson and the others—to wrap up this investigation before then. The captain grew increasingly paranoid.
Finn followed it all through his bugged Lincoln Room conversations.
The week dragged past like Marley’s chain.
Flight operations were resumed, along with their attendant daily FOD walkdowns, the unspoken message from command being, See? Everything’s back to normal!
No one was fooled.
“Nothing like a crisis to bring people together,” so went the popular wisdom—but this particular crisis seemed to work in exactly the opposite way. Every petty conflict was magnified, every rift driven deeper. Fear, withdrawal, and distrust—they became the new normal.
The rain that had dogged them since arriving at Fremantle finally stopped. At first the weather turned sunny and balmy with a warm dry breeze, then the breeze stopped and it grew blisteringly hot.
The AC system failed, was fixed, failed again.
Humidity hung in the air like wet woolen blankets, itchy and pestilential.
An outbreak of food-borne bacterial illness swept the ship, sending sailors by the hundreds through sick bay and back to their racks. Work hours were stretched, nerves frayed. Scuffles and fights broke out, with several violent assaults. All at once the brig’s genpop was busy.
Back in Fremantle Harbour the ship had reminded Finn of a floating prison. Now it felt more like a floating death row, everyone on board wondering when and where the killer would strike next.
But he was already striking, throughout the ship.
As Finn knew all too well, a sniper could function as a precision instrument of psychological warfare, crippling an entire battalion by sowing confusion and chaos among its ranks. That’s what their killer was doing. The dead and missing were his victims—but not his targets.
No, his real targets were the thousands of crew who were still alive.
By now everyone on board had twigged to the rhythm of the first three murders. Assuming the killer’s six-day plan was back on track, after being interrupted by Finn’s incarceration, the twenty-eighth should be the big day.
Finn could feel the crescendo of anxiety.
The twenty-eighth arrived.
Six thousand people held their breath.
Nothing happened.
Nobody went missing.
Yet no one felt relieved.
In fact, the anxiety deepened.
Another day went by.
And another.
Everyone waiting for the other shoe to drop.