AISHA lay staring at the overhead, blanket pulled close. Her daughter’s picture was wedged where she could see it in the half-light from the porthole. A distant bell rang on and on. She squeezed her eyelids shut, waiting for another explosion. The first had shaken the bulkhead, made the picture jump and fall. After it, a stampede of feet, and frantic, uninterpretable announcements over the 1MC.
For the past day, she’d been all but locked in here. Ryan had said she could wait with them in sick bay, help out, if they took casualties. She’d spent a couple of tense hours there, but at last had returned to her cabin. And cowered here since, hugging the curved yellow plastic of the emergency breathing device. As embarked staff, agents had been trained on what to do during emergencies. Unlatch the top, pull out the hood, bite on the mouthpiece. The oxygen flow started by itself. If she had to get out, she needed to be able to breathe. “Just remember, topside, fast as you can,” Differey had told her. “Get to the open air. There might not be a lot of time.”
She’d interviewed the helo copilot the day before, in a makeshift ready room off the hangar. Though the term “hangar” was a joke here after the yawning, blocks-long cavern that went by that name on the carrier. Here it was just adequate to squeeze a helicopter into with its blades folded. Jeffrey Differey was tall, all right, with close-cropped sandy hair, bright green eyes, and a disarming smile. Yeah, she could agree with Ryan. He was cute.
She’d begun, “You seem to be cutting quite a swath through the female crew, Mr. Differey.”
“Call me Storm.” A disarming grin. “Hey, if anything’s happening, and I’m not admitting a thing, it’s consensual.”
“I’m sure. Is that why you’re ranking number three on Gang Bang Molly?”
A frown. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He leaned back. “I’m at sea here, Special Agent. So to speak.”
“I have the rankings of the players, off the records Mr. Carpenter maintained, down in his little dirty sonar room. Number three, ranking Gangsta, name Storm.”
“Sorry. Check my flight schedule against when this other guy was playing. You’ll see.”
She’d actually thought of bumping the online time against watch schedules, but Carpenter had insisted that data had vanished when the CO had ordered the game scrubbed. “So you’re saying whoever used the player name Storm wasn’t you?”
“Could be anybody. The Barfin’ Bears, our squadron, we got a tradition. Putting stuff over on each other. Could be the crew chief, one of the guys. Or anybody, really.”
They’d stared at each other until she’d drawn breath, glancing down again. “This questionnaire. ‘What should happen to the person who did this?’ You write, ‘Tie him down and let the girls have him.’ What exactly do you mean by that?”
Differey had bared his teeth, a little-boy-caught-out expression. “Guess I didn’t take it seriously.”
“I see. So what do you think, seriously?”
“Rape’s a crime. If it was rape.”
“If?”
“That’s what I said. Word is, the Terror was pretty much green-decked for anybody.”
“Green-decked?”
“Cleared for landing. Ready to hook up.”
“And you decided to give her a try?”
The pilot had lifted his hands and winked. “Not me, Special Agent. Got other arrangements, if you know what I mean.”
* * *
THE ship had gone to general quarters shortly thereafter. But later that day she’d managed one more short interview, with the Iranian, Kaghazchi, in one of the supply offices.
The minute he’d come in, she’d felt it. Maybe it was her head scarf. Or just her color: Iranians weren’t the most racially tolerant people around. But he’d seated himself without a word, folded his arms, and stared over her shoulder. Not at her, past her.
“Storekeeper Third Kaghazchi.”
He inclined his head regally, gaze nailed to the bulkhead.
“You’re a storekeeper. With access to the storerooms.”
“Correct.” A bass rumble deep in his chest.
“D’you know Seaman Colón?”
“I know her.” Guardedly.
Colón had been attacked in one of the supply spaces. Aisha looked over his questionnaire. “You say here, ‘I write the absolute truth.’ I respect that.”
He nodded, and she went on, “You say both the man who had intercourse with Petty Officer Terranova, and Terranova herself, should be whipped, then killed.”
He nodded. “That is correct.”
“I understand you’re Iranian. But you know we’re in the United States now?”
“Of course. But you didn’t ask, what should happen according to the law. You asked what I thought. A woman cannot be forced to submit unless she is unconscious. The women on this ship are whores.” Dark eyes burned under beetled brows.
“That’s … a strong opinion, Bozorgmehr.”
“You ask me, I tell.” He shifted on the chair. “But I didn’t rape. Captain Lenson calls me to CIC, to speak on the radio. I don’t tell him what I think. Only translate what I hear. Say what I am told to say.”
“And to the bridge? Sometimes?”
“Yes. I speak on the radio from there.”
“Where were you the night Terranova was attacked? On the bridge then?”
“Working, doing inventory, back in the dry stores.”
“Are you Saturn? Or Storm?”
A moment’s hesitation. Then a lofty, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“You don’t play Gang Bang?”
“If you mean a game, I play chess sometimes. That is the only one.”
She couldn’t shake his lofty rectitude. Which left her, when she finally let him go, deeply suspicious. The most outwardly sanctimonious were often the most depraved in private. And the ones who urged the harshest sanctions, oddly, were often those who deserved to have punishment visited on them.
It seemed to be human nature.
* * *
SO she’d spent the rest of the day waiting for the shell or torpedo that would end everything, while bells rang, guns banged, and several times a hoarse roar shook everything, knocking her phone off the charger stand. The ship kept tilting and rattling, like a bus going over cobblestones at seventy miles an hour. The PA system kept warning people to stand clear of the main deck, or called so and so to lay to here or there on the double. Then the explosion had shaken the bulkheads, knocked the picture down.
But gradually, as the hours wore on, the fear wore off. Or maybe she was just getting numb. And hungry, she’d had nothing to eat since morning. Eventually she turned on the desk light and started going over her notes. Sooner or later, if they didn’t get sunk, she’d have to report on the investigation.
What did she have? Not much. No hard evidence. No eyewitnesses. She’d gone over the tapes from the flight deck cameras, with no real progress. Maybe eliminated a couple of possibilities … Carpenter, for instance. And the pilot, Differey. She’d looked at the flight logs, maintained by the air boss in CIC, and his alibi checked out; he could hardly have assaulted anyone if he was in the air.
But what did that leave her with? The SCAN had netted more suspects, not winnowed them down. If there were two suspects, an Article 32 could be convened, with the covering Region Legal Service Office having buy-in. But she still had four or five. Benyamin, Peeples, Kaghazchi, Wenck. Lenson? She couldn’t rule him out. He certainly had access.
Coming to the ship, she’d counted on the DNA. Maybe too much. A comfortable backstop that had all but assured she’d clear the case, given time for forensics in San Diego. But it had disappeared in the microwave.
If she came up with no clear suspect, the case would go cold … meaning the file would stay open, but all investigative steps had been exhausted. That was the trouble with modern forensics. They made you lazy. She’d been around long enough to remember when they hadn’t had DNA profiling, or IR imagery, or even reliable testing, really, for blood type. Back then you depended on confessions. Sweating the truth out of scared men. Now, the new agents, coming in … if they didn’t have fingernail scrapings and hair samples, semen or blood, they hardly knew where to start.
But she didn’t want to walk away. Not leaving a three-time offender loose aboard ship.
Like the man in the stairwell …
The harsh keen of a boatswain’s whistle. “Now secure from general quarters. Set the Condition Three underway watch. On deck watch section two. Battle messing will be available on the mess decks and in the wardroom until twenty hundred.”
She lay for several more seconds, staring at the picture of her little girl. Then rolled out and headed for the wardroom.
* * *
THERE were only a few officers at evening meal. The darken-ship curtains were drawn. Plates of cold cuts, sandwich makings, a tureen of chili on the sideboard. The CO was nowhere to be seen. Aisha joined the line, and found herself behind the exec. “Commander.”
“Special Agent.” Staurulakis looked haggard, pasty. She kept sighing, as if she couldn’t get enough air.
“What’s happening?” Aisha asked. “All I hear is guns going off, and the engines. It’s sort of … terrifying?”
The exec told her, in a monotone, that the Chinese had carried out a second major bombardment. The Taiwanese were fighting back, but no one knew how long they could keep it up. “You know we lost Mitscher, right? Hit by three missiles. Heavy damage. The captain ordered her to withdraw.”
“I heard an explosion—”
“A sea skimmer hit us. We’re still isolating damage, bridging the electrical power and firefighting loop, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Minor casualties, no dead, thank God.”
“Yes, thank God.” They got to the tureen. Aisha hoped it was beef chili. “Are we winning?”
A shadow crossed the exec’s face. “Hard to tell when you’re down in the trenches. The Chinese are taking losses. But they started with more pieces on the board. We’re almost out of ordnance. We lost a Japanese destroyer, too. Torpedoed. Roosevelt strike group’s on the way, but if the enemy can hold the flanks, isolate the battlefield, they can come across the strait in force. And they’ll probably win a land battle.”
Aisha sucked a breath. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“I know, it’s hard being an extra wheel. Did Grissett talk to you about lending a hand in sick bay?”
“Ryan will call if they need me. For … mass casualties.”
Staurulakis started for the table, carrying her bowl, but stopped. “So where are we on the investigation? Have the questionnaires narrowed it down?”
“Actually, they produced two fresh suspects. I eliminated one, but the other’s still viable.”
“If I asked who the front-runners are—”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
Staurulakis nodded heavily. “We can’t let a monster like this make the ship his hunting ground. The best thing you can do for us right now is nail him. And give everyone a sense of hope.”
Aisha followed her to the table. Looked at her bowl. Then pushed it away, and reached for the sandwich makings.
* * *
THE passageways were rolling violently. She started down to sick bay, but a damage-control team was busy at the bottom of the ladderway. She didn’t feel like picking her way through the hoses and cables snaked across the filthy deck. Instead, she backed away, irresolute. What now? Differey had suggested she cross-check watch bills with her suspects.
She could do that. But suddenly she didn’t want to. She sighed, just as Staurulakis had, and turned and climbed the ladder again. Went aft, through empty passageways, dogging and undogging doors behind her, until she got to her cabin.
She was reaching for the light switch before she realized her door hadn’t been locked.
When she clicked the switch, nothing happened.
He came out of the dark fast, swinging something, but she’d already crouched and as he stumbled over her she rose and lunged past. The gun. In her purse. But her hands closed on air. It wasn’t there. In the dark, she whirled, facing the heavy breathing between her and the door.
The monster, between her and the escape to the street …
She pushed the terror down and kept backing away. Scream. But who would hear? This deep in the steel belly of the ship. The J-phone … behind him, not her.
A click at the door. He was locking them in.
A sliding whisper, soft-soled shoes, slipping toward her. Backing away, she half stumbled over something soft on the floor. Her purse? She bent, felt for it, her very fingertips hoping for the hard outline of the 9mm.
But it was too soft. For a moment she gripped it, mind empty.
A blanket?
Yes. A soft, soft blanket.
Spread on the floor of her cabin.
The fear rose then, and clutched her throat like strangling fingers as he strode across the tiles toward her, brushing past one of the chairs by the round table, skirting it.
The head! With a lock on the door. But as she dashed for it he altered his course, as if guessing her intention. Hard fingers on her shoulders, and a shove in the dark thrust her back against the desk. The computer, keyboard, monitor—
A hand gripped her shoulder, and something cool and sharp pressed against her upper chest. “Don’t fight me,” a strange low voice growled. Deep. Reverberating. “Or I’ll have to kill you.”
Not a voice she recognized, but that deep bass … “Kaghazchi?” she muttered. But got no answer. Realizing, too late, that if it was him, she’d just asked for her own death.
She thought desperately, searching for some advantage, a way to call for help. She couldn’t see, but at least she knew where things were. But oddly, he seemed to also. He hadn’t stumbled over the chairs. He’d changed his stride when she’d edged toward the lavatory.
No more time to think. He was on her, both hands at her throat. He was much bigger than she was. Taller.
So it was going to be a fight. Either that, or give up and let him rape her.
Most encounters went to the ground, and if your opponent was stronger, you ended up being punched or wrestled to the floor. Then, basically, kicked and stomped to death. Or in her case, raped. And if this was the Iranian, most likely killed afterward.
She’d gotten some defensive/offensive tactics in the academy, half based on mixed martial arts, the other half boxing. She hadn’t done well. Some agents kept on with MMA, aikido, karate … but once graduated, the only self-defense training they were actually required to do was expandable baton recertification.
The baton, in the desk! She felt behind her, clawed the drawer open with hooked nails. Groped for the smooth heavy cylinder.
A sharp thin edge at her throat. The knife. Both women had mentioned it. A smooth edge. A heavy, cloying breath, and the smell of … lemons? The softness sliding, giving way underfoot. Her left hand scrabbled at his back. Smooth cotton. A belt.
His hands were at her neckline, tearing at her clothes. She got an elbow between them and tried to lever him away. But he was too strong, and kept ripping downward. Cool air on her skin. The prick of the knife again. The bear growl. “Stop it. I’ll cut your throat out.”
She didn’t want to go to the floor, but some remnant of advice surfaced from the certification. Try to stay on your feet. But if you can’t, turn the tables.
She had just enough time to think, Allah, help me. Help me fight. Amin.
She levered his arm away, twisted, and buckled her knees, sliding instantly downward. Thrust her left leg out, and hooked his ankle. Reversed the baton, in her right hand, and slapped it down as hard as she could into the outside of his thigh. At the same time she bucked with all the power of her hips, with her haunches braced against the solid, bolted-down steel of the desk.
The leverage, and probably pain, too, reeled him back. She scrambled to her feet, left foot planted, panting, taking the ready position for the next strike. “You’re under arrest!” she shouted, though the constriction in her throat made it choked and weak. “Stay back! Stop resisting. You’re under arrest!”
The baton was an impact weapon. From the ready position, she could swing across her body both forward and back. They told you to aim for the extremities of the bad guy—elbow, knee, clavicle, upper arms, thighs, and shins. If she struck to the chest or head, that was deadly force. Still, against a knife, deadly force was justified. “Stop!” she yelled again, and stepped forward.
Flick the baton into extension … and strike. She couldn’t see where, but she battered him again and again, flailing down in the dark, kicking with her boots at his legs. Stamp on an ankle, he’d be lamed. Get him in the crotch, and she could get cuffs on him. Take him right now.
Instead, he rolled up off the floor, and his harsh breath hovered a few feet off, level with her own. Like two battling wolves, each smelling blood, they crouched opposite each other. Stealing a moment to get their breaths.
“You’re dead now,” that strange voice grated. It couldn’t be his normal voice. He was disguising it. But he didn’t seem to have an accent. Maybe it wasn’t Kaghazchi. “But first…” it trailed off into panting. Strange, the other seemed to be growing more tired than she was. She felt totally alive, totally focused. She could see in the dark. Her muscles possessed enormous power. He might kill her, yes. But she’d hurt him. Marked him out.
But who was it? Benyamin? Wenck?… Lenson? Certainly the captain would know his way around the unit commander’s stateroom.
A little more trickled back from the annual recert. The combatives trainer, a diminutive agent from the Philippines. Sergio? Regio? Move and hit. Don’t stand still. And when you hit, hit hard! She took her stance, left foot out, right back, got her balance, backed to the left, getting the desk out from behind her. The baton made little circles. She cocked her arm, tracking ragged breathing in the dark, the squeak of soles on tile deck. If he got within arm’s length, she’d go for face or neck. A side strike. Paralyze the shoulder, take out an eye. Then low, for the knee, drop him again.
Instead, there was a squeak and a clank, and a rush of air.
A heavy weight with steel protrusions crashed out of the dark into her face. She gasped and reeled back as the desk chair, swung a second time, caught her in the chest, knocked the baton out of her grasp. It rattled into the dark.
He came in after it. Something heavy and hard hammered down on her head. The butt of the knife … She gasped, trying to claw his face, but another chair-swing knocked her to her knees. And another, down onto cold tile. She gagged, his arm across her throat. His other hand tore at her pants. Buttons popped. A knee in her belly drove the last air from her lungs.
Helpless under his weight, she blinked as a jagged glare sectioned her vision, bright as lightning, the world come apart into light. A harsh hot breath in her ear.
His weight, on her.
Like before.
Just like before.
She screamed, only his arm pressed so hard she couldn’t. Couldn’t even breathe—
His outline above her, dark, crouched. The shape of his head.
More light, behind him.
The open door. A scream, but this one … not her own?
The weight shifted abruptly, then lifted. A swift movement above her; she rolled her head to the side, only just in time. The knife-point slammed into the tile beside her ear, dragging across it.
Then he was off her, and Ryan was screaming again. Something flew across the room and burst against the desk, shattered, throwing shards. Aisha got to one elbow, gagging, something broken in her throat. Dimly registering a scuffle near the door, a stumbling struggle, another scream.
Then the doorway was empty, and Ryan was groping toward the desk. The corpsman found the switch of the desk lamp, and light burst forth, dazzling. The freckled face, the blond-red eyebrows leaning close above her. “You all right? Aisha! You okay?”
“Who … who was it? Did you get a—”
“I couldn’t see. Too dark. He ran past, almost knocked me down.” Ryan helped her up. Helped her pull her pants up, put her clothing back together. “Um. Hm. Did he—”
“Not quite. You got here just in time.” Aisha straightened, wheezing as pain lanced neck, head, throat. A jagged scar gleamed where the deck tile had been gouged open. He’d meant to bury the blade in her throat. She could almost see the blood, pooled, spattered on the white bulkheads. Her own.
Her knees buckled and she caught herself on the younger woman’s shoulder. She squinted around, looking for something left behind. Something, anything, to identify her attacker.
But saw only a soft-looking blue blanket, lying rumpled on the deck.