AISHA stood by the rail as the sea rushed past. The warm wind tore at her head scarf and flapped the legs of her cargo pants. The waves were almost black. It was a long way down. She hugged herself as the mustering petty officer went down his clipboard, matching each name against the grease-penciled placard on the bulkhead.
“Okay, all present and accounted for who’s already signed up. So who’s not? Who here’s not on the watch, quarter, and station bill?”
She raised her hand, and so did the scientist. “Okay, names?”
“Aisha Ar-Rahim.”
“William Noblos.”
The mustering officer penciled them in. “You shoulda been on here long before this, Doc.”
“I thought I was. I mustered here before.” Past the petty officer, he winked at Aisha. Sharing the joke.
“Then Gussy didn’t log you in. He’s the mustering PO when I can’t make it.” The petty officer raised his voice into the wind, looking around at the gaggle of bodies on the starboard side, frame fifty-five abandon-ship station. “Okay, listen up! The following will be a brief on procedures to be followed in the event of abandon ship.”
He read from the clipboard. “‘The first indication is the general alarm, followed by the command “Now all hands, abandon ship” passed over the 1MC. If the 1MC is out of commission, word will be passed verbally. The order must come from the bridge or the senior living command authority.
“‘When preparing to abandon ship, wear a full set of clothing including shoes and a soft cap or head covering as protection from exposure. Do not wear a helmet or plastic hard hat when going over the side. Life preservers shall be securely fastened. When distance to the surface is over thirty feet or there is burning oil on the water, throw the life preserver over the side first. Inflatable preservers shall not be inflated until wearer is in the water. The life preserver shall be inflated as soon as wearer is in the water and/or clear of flames.
“‘Go over the side by means of a line, ladder, or debarkation net if time permits. If it is necessary to jump, look first to be sure that water below is clear of personnel or floating gear or wreckage. Do not dive! Always jump feetfirst, with feet and legs together and arms crossed over the chest holding on to the life preserver.
“‘Abandon ship as far away from damaged areas as possible. Check the direction of the wind and go over on the windward side, if possible, to avoid flames, oil, and downwind drift of ship.
“‘Once in the water, stay calm and avoid panic. Obey the following rules: One, conserve energy by moving as little as possible. Two, keep clear of oil slicks. Protect eyes and breathing passages by keeping head high or swimming underwater. If swimming underwater, prior to coming up, put hands above head and splash the water surface to disperse oil, debris, or flames. Three, if there is danger of underwater explosion, float or swim on the back as near the surface as possible. Four, stay with other persons in the water to reduce danger of sharks and make rescue easier. In cold water, forming close circles with others will preserve heat.
“‘Five, if ship is sinking rapidly, swim clear promptly, and tow injured persons clear, to avoid suction effect.’” He looked up. “Any questions?”
Aisha hoped she didn’t look as apprehensive as she felt. She raised a hand. “I have one. Where’s our lifeboat?”
“You’re looking at it.” The petty officer nodded at the gray fiberglass barrel. “The twenty-five-man encapsulated life raft. The ship has fifteen. We also got the two RHIBs, port and starboard. Total capacity, four hundred and fifteen. So even if some don’t inflate, or get shot up, we got plenty of rafts. Get over the side, swim to a raft, hole up, wait for rescue.”
“Now secure from abandon-ship stations, once training is complete,” said the 1MC. “Secure from abandon-ship stations, once training is complete.”
He looked around. “Any more questions? No? Then go ahead and secure.”
She stood there for a while after the others left, a hand on the lifeline, staring down at the passing sea. From the sound of things, it could be an all-out war out here. Was it possible that this immense ship could go down? Disappear beneath the waves forever?
Leaving them floating, like debris, alone under the burning sky?
* * *
DUNK Ryan was waiting when she got to her cabin, cradling the last accordion folder to her chest. She wore the ship’s black-and-olive head scarf gathered around her neck. Aisha unlocked the door. “That’s all? All the files?”
“The last ones. From Lieutenant Garfinkle-Henriques. Supply Department.”
“On the table, with the rest.”
The SCAN process was a deceptively simple but analytically powerful tool for screening a large group of suspects. She and Ryan had sat down with the questions she’d used in previous cases, and come up with ten for this one. Some were easy-peasy, just to get people writing. But buried in with them were others that she’d look at closely.
The key was the essay. She’d asked: How did you first hear about the attack on Petty Officer Beth Terranova? Where were you the night and time she was attacked? What should happen to the person who did this?
Working around their watches and maintenance, every man on the ship had filled one out. Though not without grumbling. Complaints that they were wasting valuable time in the middle of a war. But with the exec’s support, she’d rammed it through.
“Printout from ship’s office?”
“Here.” The corpsman laid it beside the stacks. Aisha had asked the exec to generate an Excel printout listing all male crew members over five feet ten inches. Based on Terranova’s height, five four, she’d guessed at that as a cutoff point for “tall.” That left thirty-three individuals. Ryan went through the last batch from the accordion file, adding them to a smaller pile separate from the others.
“How many’s that make?”
“Thirty-five, total. Out of the whole crew.”
Aisha seated herself with a sharpened pencil and a lined tablet, prepared for some puzzling. Just since she’d joned the NCIS, she’d noted a marked decay in naval penmanship. A lot of her entries were hand printed, in varying degrees of neatness. A few were decently handwritten, but many were in some peculiar scrawl halfway between script and shorthand. Of course, the quality of the writing wasn’t germane. In fact, given the level of intellectual accomplishment she was gradually assigning to this perp, an illegible, nearly illiterate scrawl might even help cross a candidate off the list.
This guy was definitely full of himself. He’d defied them, “flipped them off” as Duncanna had said, with the DNA samples. Not just in the destroying of the only shred of hard evidence, but in the way he’d done it. Flaunting his intellectual superiority.
But that pride was also a weakness. A flaw she planned to home in on.
She picked up the first statement. How did you first hear about the attack on Petty Officer Beth Terranova?
I did yes it was scuttlebutt in the shop.
Where were you the night and time she was attacked?
In the shop, trying to make deckplate screw because were out of them and the supply system is two years backlog. All our deckplates in Aux 2 are loose or riveted down with copper wire. Chief McMottie was there he will back me up on this.
What should happen to the person who did this?
Naval justice court-martial go to prison if he is gilty—but got to have fair trial as some girl will say yes and then say they say no to get back at you.
Nothing stood out about this one except the brevity of the answers. Sometimes terseness was a sign of withholding, but in this case, from the laborious writing, she got the feeling it was simply economy of effort. A hint of misogyny in the last answer, but she couldn’t disagree with it as a statement of fact. Revenge, jealousy … occasionally a false accusation was wielded as a weapon, but usually all it took was a sit-down with the complainant and a heart-to-heart to clarify things. This response got a yellow sticky note reminding her to check with McMottie and see if the alibi held up. “Next,” she muttered, then noticed Ryan was reading ahead of her. “Don’t read those!”
“Why not? I just want to help—”
She explained gently but firmly that aside from the CMA, she couldn’t let ship’s company help with investigative steps. “Not that you’d knowingly do anything wrong, but an untrained assistant just doesn’t know what not to do. In your off time, who do you talk to about the case? Are you friends with any of my potential suspects? Everything we do, we might have to testify about. A defense attorney would crucify you on the stand, and we’d get hammered for allowing someone without law-enforcement training to conduct investigative steps.”
The girl made a face but turned the paper over. Aisha went back to the questionnaire.
How did you first hear about the attack on Petty Officer Beth Terranova?
From the chief of my division during quarters.
Where were you the night and time she was attacked?
No real alibi. I was turned into my bunk that night as I was off watch bill due to migraine headache.
What should happen to the person who did this?
People like this animal should be strapped down and let the women cut his nuts off. That’s what they do in Arabia and it sounds good to me. You wouldn’t have rapists then or at least only once.
She puzzled over this one and at last set it aside. Better spelling, better handwriting, and a touch of overeagerness on the punishment angle, combined with a hint of imagination.
The next statement was two pages long. It seemed to have been written by someone in a fever, or with severe attention deficiency. She puzzled over it for some minutes. This guy wasn’t into impressing anyone. “Who’s R. M. Downie?”
“You know him. The weird little guy on the mess decks. The Troll,” Ryan added.
“Oh. Right, right.” Aisha nodded and put it on the reject pile.
Half an hour later she had six prospectives and twenty-nine rejects. Some of the latter she wasn’t certain about, but a SCAN didn’t give you absolutes, only leads that had to be followed up the good old-fashioned way: bootsoles in the passageways. Two of the names were familiar. Benyamin and Peeples. Both rated high on the misogyny factor and neither had much of an alibi yet, even after having been interviewed, knowing they were suspects. A third was the same Mycus Ammons who’d advised her, on the bridge wing, that being a Muslim condemned her to hell. She didn’t think that was why she’d felt moved to put his name in the suspect pile. It was his raving about how shameless the women were on board ship. His answer had been, I heard about it from one of the ops specs. Wasn’t surprised when I heard. I knew her and she was always asking for it.
But two names were new to her. One was a Kaghazchi, first name Bozorgmehr, storekeeper third class. Ryan said he was Iranian. Along with being a storekeeper, he was often up on the bridge helping with translation, or talking to foreign ships when a Parsi speaker was needed.
“So he’d be familiar with that passageway, and had access,” Aisha murmured.
“Could be.” Ryan nodded. “And you know, there were three other Iranians aboard back when we were in the Indian Ocean. Guys we picked up at sea. That was the first time Beth got groped.”
Aisha reread what the storekeeper had written. I will speak here as I always do, the absolute truth without attempting to think what anyone will find acceptable or correct. Both the evil man who had sex intercourse with her and the evil woman who consented should be whipped first, then stoned. A woman is as guilty as the man she lies with. No one can thread a moving needle. There is a reason God made marriage. American women tempt men and seduce them, drive them from reason. They have no shame. But they will learn one day.
Hard-core all right. The old line: it was the woman’s fault. “You’re saying one of them might have started it, and he got the idea from them? You know him?”
“Just to say hi. When he comes in for sick call, or we have to update his shot record. Like, when we did the anthrax series.”
Aisha pondered that, rereading the last sentences. They have no shame. But they will learn one day.
It was a threat, all right.
She set the page aside for the next, and cleared her throat. “What about this other guy? Jeffrey Differey?”
“Jeffrey?” Ryan briefly looked confused; then her brow cleared. “You mean Storm?”
“His name’s Storm?”
“I mean that’s his flying name. He’s not really shipboard complement. He’s air side.”
“One of the helo crewmen?”
“Usually he flies as copilot for Mr. Wilker. Strafer and Storm, they like to use the names together.”
She nodded. Certainly a pilot would have reason to be back in the hangar area, where the first groping had taken place. “Do the pilots spend a lot of time on the bridge?”
“Sometimes, yeah. Talking with the CO or the navigator. About the weather, usually. And in CIC, too, with the air controllers.”
Aisha quizzed her, but she didn’t know any more about Storm Differey other than that he wore his hair super short, smiled at all the female crew, and was cute. “He’s married, though.”
“Believe me, that doesn’t mean he can’t be a rapist, honey.” She flipped through her case notes, looking for a printout of the player names for the Gang Bang game. Sure enough, there it was. Storm, points 367, player rating Gangsta.
The fifth paper she’d selected out was one Daniel V. Lenson. The commanding officer. His answers read:
How did you first hear about the attack on Petty Officer Beth Terranova?
Notified by CMAA and XO.
Where were you the night and time she was attacked?
Most likely either on the bridge or in CIC.
What should happen to the person who did this?
Once a suspect is identified, punishment will be determined by a court-martial. My personal opinion is that the most appropriate punishment would be imprisonment for a term of ten to fifteen years.
She lifted her head and blew out. Brief but thoughtful answers. Hewing to the requirements of legal procedure and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Just what you’d expect from a senior officer.
Then why did they sound evasive, like words mouthed behind a screen?
“So what do we do now?” The corpsman hovered by the door, cupping her elbows.
“Carry on with the investigation. What else? We have a couple of new people to interview.”
“You know what’s going on, right?”
She got up and went to the mirror. Checked her appearance. “What do you mean? In the investigation?”
“No. That China issued an ultimatum to Taiwan.”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“They said, surrender or be invaded. It’s going to be a real war now. Not all this dancing around we’ve been doing out here.”
“That doesn’t affect my mission.”
“It affects mine, Special Agent. I want to help you find this guy. But we’ve got to be ready to treat mass casualties. If we go to Condition One, GQ, that’s where I’ll be. If we get attacked, it might not matter if we catch him. If we all, like, die together.”
Aisha turned her head slightly, evaluating her eyelids. “Is that likely?”
“The girls say it could happen. A missile. A torpedo.” She hugged herself more tightly.
Aisha nodded, still looking at her own hooded dark eyes. The too-round face, the sagging chin line. She looked tired too, the way everyone on the ship did. “What will you do then?” the corpsman added.
She smiled sadly at herself. “I believe I will trust in God.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say? Trust in God?”
“Who else is there?”
The corpsman didn’t answer. A moment later, the door clicked behind her.