The Larson Hall staff burst into raucous song as Dan opened the door, startling him. His first day back, and his subordinates lifted glasses of sparkling apple juice to chorus “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”
“Speech, sir!” cried Burke-Bowden, big and bluff and hearty, and looking at his open, guileless face Dan knew he had to respond.
He lifted a plastic tumbler and cleared his throat. “Thanks so much for the welcome. I missed you all, and … I’m really glad to be back.”
Handed a saber, he sworded slices of vanilla-and-lemon faculty club cake piped with the legend INNOCENT. Valerie Marsh was there, looking prim. Master Chief Abimbola, for some reason in casual civvies instead of blues. Amarpeet Singhe, lithe and crisp in blue and gold; was that a subtle wink as she accepted her cake? Gupta, the athletic director, refilling his glass with sparkling juice as if his budget depended on it. Burnbright, Dan’s PAO, with circles under her eyes … in her last trimester now and probably not getting much sleep. And Dan’s fresh-faced aide, Lieutenant LeCato.
He didn’t see Colonel Stocker or Dean Mynbury. He started to ask where they were, but didn’t. The remark might make it seem like he was offended. Sometimes wearing stars was more about what you shouldn’t say, than what you should.
At his office window, licking lemon icing off his fingers, he gazed down at the Yard as the ships’ bells rang the hour from the Mahan Hall tower. The trees, the carefully tended flower beds were so beautiful. He was lucky to have this assignment. Lucky to be free. Lucky to be alive. He had to force himself to turn away, back to his desk.
Valerie had a sheaf of calls and emails to return, and Burnbright had media requests to respond to. After that he had meetings stacked back-to-back all morning, to catch up.
He sighed and turned to.
He returned the official calls in order of rank, per protocol. The SecNav’s office, then the CNO. He’d leave N7 for last, then think about the requests for interviews and quotes. Yeah, he should release some kind of statement, though The Hague had announced the verdict.
Blair, of course, had welcomed him back the night before. He closed his eyes, recalling it. They’d coupled like cats, snarling and biting. They knew each other’s buttons, and how to push, and lick, and stroke to maximum effect. There were signs of age, of course. Loosenings. Wrinkles. Subtracting nothing, rather, adding to the pleasure of being together still. Youthful infatuation might be great, but spending decades with someone you loved beat it all hollow.
The CNO’s office asked him to hold. He busied himself looking over the minutes of the governing board meeting Burke-Bowden had held in his absence. When Hlavna finally came on, though, she sounded upbeat. “We had our doubts, about your rendering yourself,” she said.
The use of the plural confused him for a second. She and who else? But he waited for the rest of his sentence. If she was going to impose one.
“Like I said, we weren’t sure that was smart.… In fact, a couple folks here thought you were just plain nuts. But Dick Enders—he’s your classmate, right?—said you knew what you were doing. And I have to admit, turning yourself in made us look twice as good and the Chinese twice as bad. Getting acquitted’s just the icing on the cake.”
Dan cleared his throat. “Yeah … but that wasn’t why I did it.”
“Why, then?”
“It seemed like the honorable thing. To respond, when you’re accused.”
A pause, then, “Yeah, Dick said you were like that.” She chuckled. “You know, if it wasn’t for that woman in Congress, I’d think you were angling for my job.”
Dan had to snort. “Believe me, Admiral, I have absolutely no desire to be CNO. Not after seeing what it did to Barry Niles.”
They discussed the former chief of naval operations for a few minutes—he was still fighting cancer, and to everyone’s astonishment, still alive—before her tone turned serious. “Have you had a chance to see what they’re saying on social media? About your white power club?”
He sucked air. “No. Not yet. And it’s not really a—”
“It’s gathering visibility fast. Saying Midshipman Evans’s death wasn’t an accident. That a white male had to be gotten rid of, so a female Jew could be brigade captain.”
Why hadn’t Burnbright mentioned it? “Ridiculous. I didn’t even know Oshry was Jewish. And the autopsy was definitive. He slipped and fell.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s all part of the plot, to them. Most of the noise is from the fringe, Xchan, Loofah Delight, but keep a close eye on that club of yours. Before it tars us the way religious intolerance at Colorado Springs did the Air Force.” Hlavna’s tone sharpened. “This is one Navy, Dan. Male. Female. Gay. Whatever color. Whatever religion, or none. Make sure everyone knows that the second they take the oath, we’re all equal. It’s not just right. It’s what we have to do, these days, for recruitment and retention.”
Valerie, at his door. “Sir, the commandant’s here.”
Dan waved to send her in. He thanked Hlavna again for her support and ended the call. Wondering what or who had triggered the trolls, about Evans. Was there something he didn’t know? Could it have come from inside the Yard?
He swiveled to face Stocker. “Colonel. Good to see you. Relax, have a seat.”
She nodded. In impeccable greens, as usual. “First, congratulations, Admiral. On being exonerated.”
“Thanks. What’ve you got for me?”
“Several emergent issues, I’m afraid. First up, we might’ve made a mistake. Permitting the Anglo ECA.”
“I just got an earful about that from the CNO.” ECAs were extracurricular activities, like drama, or the Glee Club, or the French Club. Dan restrained an impulse to remind Stocker she had recommended permitting it. Since Evans’s accident, the club had been led by a tall, intense firstie with a West Virginia twang, Midshipman Galadriel Stewart. He seemed to know her from somewhere, but so far had never nailed down where. He added, keeping his tone neutral, “What’s the trouble?”
She explained, expression grim. More racist graffiti. Abuse scrawled on a Black player’s locker during baseball practice. “Most worrying, one of Seventeenth Company’s plebes was beaten up last night.”
“What?” Dan went to full alert. “Very not okay. Who by? We’ll expel him … or exile them to the oldest, crummiest tugboat in the Fleet, if they’re upperclass.”
She grimaced. “They were masked, and it was dark. Behind the fourth wing.”
Dan wondered what a plebe, any plebe, was doing back there after lights out. But whatever the reason, he didn’t rate being assaulted. “Masked?”
“The blue NF95 masks we issue. She was masked too, apparently.”
She? Oh, great. Worse and worse. “She wasn’t—”
“She says not. Trans, by the way, but she identifies as female. Yelled at, beaten with fists, according to the report. No sexual assault.”
That was a relief, at least. Still … something sounded not quite straightforward. The Brigade had a long, though officially discountenanced, tradition of settling disagreements one-on-one. Sometimes that had been semiofficial, in the boxing ring beneath MacDonough Hall. But at other times at night, in private, with seconds to keep things fair. It was nonreg, of course, and those involved rated major demerits if caught.
But never in a back alley, with several assailants beating on one victim. If that’s the way it had been in this case.
He said cautiously, “Uh, who reported the assault? The victim?”
“No, sir. Yard employees. The cleanup crew from the Drydock.”
The pizza-and-sandwiches joint next door, in Dahlgren Hall. He sat back, considering. The victim hadn’t reported it. Which could mean she might not be a victim at all.
“I recommend a full-court press on this one, sir,” Stocker said. “Get the NCIS in. Identify ’em and dismiss ’em.”
As usual, she favored the nuclear option. “Uh, Colonel, before we do that, I’d like to talk to the mid involved,” Dan said. “Believe me, if it was a racist attack, or gender-based, we’ll crack down. And declare a brigade-wide stand-down, to get the message to all hands. But I’d like to make sure we’re making the right assumptions first.”
Stocker looked as if she wanted to disagree. But finally nodded. “And there’s the cheating issue,” she said.
Dan looked at his watch. “We’ll meet about that later this afternoon, right? Let’s just hold that thought, for now.”
Commander Singhe’s Sexual Abuse and Suicide Prevention Action Group met in his outer office. As ever, he found it hard to look away from her. Gleaming dark hair, and eyes like an Indian deity’s … The same sandalwood perfume that had nearly taken him down, alone in his stateroom with her aboard USS Savo Island.… He blinked back a guilty fantasy as she introduced the brigade medical officer. Maybe it was good she was married now. A marine aviator, a test pilot out of Pax River and a prospective astronaut, no less.
The doc said, “Our takeaways: Depression and anxiety are normal for students in their teens and early twenties. Probably more here, since expectations are sky-high and failure seems catastrophic. Another thought: that population lost a lot to COVID, the C flu, and the war. Also, due to gaming, their focus is online, not on personal relationships. They struggle to ask for help, or communicate their feelings.” The medico recommended assemblies in every company, led by the company officers. Also, a visit to sick bay, or a psychological consultation, should no longer result in a record entry. A talk with the chaplain didn’t, after all.
Stocker, also attending, had remained silent. Dan asked her, tearing his eyes away from Singhe’s casually crossed legs, “What do you think, Colonel?”
“I hesitate to say, Admiral.”
He waved a hand. “This is a free-fire zone.”
She sat forward. “Frankly, Admiral, if they can’t stand the pressure here, they’ll be useless on the battlefield.” She paused again, then went on, obviously controlling emotion. “We had this discussion earlier. About Midshipman Second Class Court.”
“The paralyzed girl.”
“Right. If they can’t meet standards, they don’t belong here. We should be hardening these people. Preparing them to endure. Coddling them isn’t a favor to them, or those they’ll lead. We’ll pay for it in blood.”
There it was again, the everlasting dilemma: separate or nurture, reject or develop. He was about to respond when Mynbury lifted a hand. “I also disagree,” the dean said.
Dan nodded reluctantly. The provost tented his fingers, and Dan braced himself for a numbing discourse. “We’re making progress with this program. But it only scratches the surface.”
Dan forced a smile. “How do you mean, Grant?”
“These all-hands meetings should include other issues than suicide prevention. I heard about the attack behind the fourth wing last night. Punishment just drives bad behavior underground. We need serious gender and diversity training. Role-playing. Trust exercises. Self-criticism sessions.”
“Self-criticism,” Dan repeated. “Like in the Red Guards? Wear a dunce cap, and confess your errors?”
Mynbury smiled condescendingly. “We’ve seen what prejudice-reduction initiatives can do in the Ivy League. Deep discussion. A multicultural curriculum. Challenging myths and stereotypes. And personal contact with the subjects of prejudice. There’s a paper on contact theory I’ll send you—”
“Please do,” Dan said, desperate to get back to preventing suicides. “Meanwhile, I like the commander’s idea about getting professional advice. Grant, you mentioned the Ivy League. Let’s reach out, see how they’ve addressed this issue. We’re a service academy, but the demographic we draw from can’t be that different. Okay, Commander … what about your work on sexual assault?”
Singhe skated a single sheet across to him. “My recommendations. For one thing, we should hire a civilian professional to design and run our response. He, or she, can administer the training program, and serve as a resource for the alleged victims during the investigation process.”
She cocked her head. “But it’s not a cure-all. I won’t point the usual fingers. Sure, it’s unnatural, in some ways, to put people this age cheek to cheek and expect them to act like they’re eighty.
“But we have to draw red lines. You don’t hit on shipmates. You treat everyone with respect. When somebody steps over the line, bystander intervention; you call them out. And if they persist, you refer them to the disciplinary system.”
She brushed her hair back and flashed him a glance. “Sexual attraction … it exists. Sexual misconduct … we’ll never drive the incidence to zero. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying.”
Dan smiled. “Thanks, Commander. We need a road map and milestones. A system everyone can trust. And on the mental health issue, keep pushing the ball down the field on that too. I want every mid, and our staff members too, to understand that if things get too dark, it’s okay to seek help.”
He closed the meeting, and took a head break before the next one. Mynbury was still holding forth in the conference room as Dan washed his hands. God, the guy never stopped.
Back at his desk, he reached irritably for his inbox.
And pulled out the inaugural issue of the revived LOG. For the comeback, the editors had assembled a “Greatest Hits” issue, collecting the funniest articles and graphics since its first issue in 1913. He started to flip through, in a foul mood, then chortled at a ridiculous cartoon.
Minutes later he had to set it aside, choking with helpless laughter. Yeah, bringing it back had been the right idea.
The cheating inquiry brought him down with a bang. Twenty-three upperclass had been caught sharing a pony to an online engineering exam. The reviewing AI had flagged the identical answers.
Mynbury, Gupta, Burke-Bowden, and Stocker sat silently as Dan strode back and forth, hammering a fist into his palm. “We do not lie. We do not cheat. We do not steal. We teach every plebe that! So what’s not taking?”
They glanced uneasily at one another, but no one answered. He raged on. “What burns my ass is, this happens over and over! I was an honor rep when I was a mid. For a while, anyway. And we saw the same thing then.
“I think the majority of our grads value honesty above personal interest. But every ten years or so, we get these massive violations. The honor system’s supposed to be a deterrent? Obviously it isn’t enough.” He rounded on Gupta. “And guess what? Eight of them are on our basketball team.”
The athletic director blinked. “Well, not to excuse them, Admiral, but fifteen of them weren’t. Also, that’s a notoriously difficult exam. If we could administer something more reasonable—”
“Just for the team members, you mean?”
The director shrugged, holding his gaze. As if to say, Why not?
Dan said through his teeth, “That’s unacceptable, Virjay. How about when they’re on a flight line, or conning a boomer under the ice? The sea doesn’t accept liars. It kills them. Along with their crews.” He picked up the briefing folder, then slammed it down. “What frosts my ass is no one throws a flag. They all just … go along.”
“That’d be ratting their classmates out,” Stocker said.
“We’re not West Point,” Dan snapped. “A mid can confront a cheater without reporting it to us. Nobody did that either! We’re doing something very wrong.”
He slammed the folder down again. Burke-Bowden winced. Dan snarled, “I’m going to recommend to SecNav we discharge them. Every damned one. Maybe mass expulsion’s the only way I can get the point across.”
They regarded him in shocked silence. Gupta actually went pale. He spluttered, “Admiral … these are varsity athletes. NCAA champions. Our win percentage—”
“I have more priorities than our win percentage,” Dan snapped, knowing instantly that sound bite wasn’t going to make him popular. “I’d rather have honest athletes on a mediocre team than dishonest players on a winning one. Do I make myself clear?”
Burke-Bowden cleared his throat. “Sir, we had this discussion with Admiral Cree. Do we base the honor concept on fear, or on the desire to do the right thing? You’re going straight back to fear. Counsel, punish, but you’re going to reap the whirlwind if you separate that many N-star athletes.”
Dan rounded on him. “You too, Jack? I can pay out some slack for a mid if it’s a minor violation of the regs, or he comes in a little low on aptitude or academics. But I can’t give way on honor.”
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, bringing the meeting to an end. And hoped, as they filed out in silence, he was making the right call.
Hanover, the mid who’d been beaten up, reported to Dan’s office at 1300. A beefy, truculent-looking third class, she still had bruises around the mouth. She refused to identify who’d given them to her.
“What we need to know, Ms. Hanover, is, was this a prejudicially motivated assault? Or was it prearranged? A grudge fight?” To help out, Dan had his legal advisor sitting in the corner of the office. “I’m not pressuring you either way. I just want the truth.”
Hanover sat wordlessly, face averted. And didn’t answer.
Dan touched his nose. Remembering from long ago a body in the snow. A lanky form silhouetted against a fresh snowfall on T-Court. And a previous interview, where the real issues could never be fully voiced. “The truth’s always the safest course,” he told her. “If it’s a question of demerits for fighting, maybe I could ask the colonel to suspend those. This time. But if we’ve got guys beating up on a woman, that’s different.”
She said, reluctantly, “He was calling me things. You know … tranny. Shemale. Dickless freak. That kind of stuff.”
“Verbal harassment’s a conduct offense. Put him on report.”
“Yes, sir. It’s just that … getting the administration involved…”
She trailed off, but Dan got it. The eternal war. Added to that, the blowback for a mid who turned in a classmate … he knew about that. “Fine, but I’m going to need an answer. Was this a challenge fight?”
She bit her lip, hesitating. Finally said, “Sort of?”
Dan side-eyed the attorney, who inclined her head. “Good. That clarifies things. Now: Do you want me to proceed with an investigation? Or end this here? I hope no one promised you the Academy wouldn’t suck now and then. Actually, pretty often, if we’re honest.
“But if we proceed, it’ll be UCMJ charges. Possibly federal prison time, for a hate crime. For him, I mean. For you, a Class A conduct charge.”
She said, in a low voice, “I’d really rather … you didn’t. Sir. Proceed, I mean.”
“I can draw something up,” the legal officer said. “She names the other participant in the fight. We award them both ninety demerits, for a challenge to physical combat. Then you suspend the forty-five-day restriction and walking tours, subject to good behavior for the rest of the ac year.”
Dan nodded, trying not to look relieved. One less problem, and maybe all parties would learn something. He turned back to the mid. “But this is a one-off, Hanover. Understood? Any more trouble, you’re both going down. Big.”
The third class ducked her head, studying her swollen, bruised knuckles. At last she nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Standing in Halligan Hall that afternoon, he still wondered if he’d made the right decisions that day. Maybe he should leave more of them to the commandant. Or to the NCIS. Maybe more accurately, though, by the time a decision got to his level, there were no right or wrong answers, only trade-offs.
Hell, maybe he could play bad cop this time. Let Stocker and Mynbury talk him down. He already knew, now he’d cooled off, he wasn’t really going to discharge all twenty-four cheaters. Whoever had stolen the answers, yes. Whoever passed them on, sure. The others … well, he’d wait and see what the honor board recommended.
He dragged his attention back as Jerry Bonar, the public works supervisor, laid out the results of his preliminary study.
“Basically, sir, we only came up with three viable options to the sea level rise slash subsiding fill problem. Move across the river. Block the water on the Lower Yard with levees, seawalls, and pumps. Or abandon Annapolis for a higher location, farther inland.” He paused. “Apropos of that, are you tracking Olaf?”
“Olaf?” Dan blanked for a moment, then remembered. “Oh, yeah, the hurricane. Weather has it headed up the coast well out to sea. No problem for us.”
“I hope so.” The engineer still looked worried.
Dan straightened. “Okay, enlighten me. And I know you can’t provide hard numbers, but a ballpark would help. Also, let’s forget about option three. We’re not leaving here.”
Bonar called up the holographic projection Dan had seen before. The scene it projected this time was different. Dan studied it as the supervisor said, “Here’s what it looks like if we move the Brigade and our academic plant across the river. We leave the Chapel, the Supe’s House, and Admin where they are, since they’re above the floodplain.”
Dan crossed his arms, frowning. The projection showed Bancroft and the academic and athletic facilities relocated to new sites. That wasn’t really possible, obviously. Uproot the most massive dormitory in the world, built of granite on ten thousand pilings, and move it across a river? “We’d, uh, need new buildings.”
“Yes, sir. This is just a placeholder, you might say.”
“At how many billions?”
“I ran an order-of-magnitude estimate. Remember, it took over a hundred years to build out what we have now. The cost of reconstructing everything across the river … at least seven hundred billion over ten years. Not counting teardown, remediation…”
Dan rubbed his face. The numbers, in inflated postwar dollars, were mind-numbing. Congress would shut the Academy down before appropriating a fifth of the entire defense budget to move the campus a mile across the water. “Shit … I mean, okay. Option two?”
The holograph changed. Now the Yard looked much the same, except that high berms, or levees, had replaced the riprap seawalls along the Bay and river. Four new buildings were outlined in red.
Bonar dwelt a laser marker on them. “The dikes block most of the water as the Bay level rises. But they can’t stop it all. Like I told you before: the water percolates up through that old fill.
“So we build an underground drainage system. At high or storm tide, these four pumping stations pipe the water up to a reservoir on Strawberry Hill. We release it when the surge passes. A bonus: as it runs back downhill, we spin hydroelectric turbines to recover the power. Not quite net zero, but close. I’m assuming we build this over ten years.”
Dan grimaced. “You mean, where the cemetery is now?” Disinterring, moving, reburying nearly two hundred years of coffins and bodies … “How much would that cost? A wild-ass guess.”
“A hundred billion.”
He sucked air. Steep … but maybe affordable, over a decade. “Uh, and how long will it buy us? Before we have to figure out a more permanent solution?”
Bonar studied the water-stained ceiling. “Will President Holton’s administration meet our Paris Agreement commitments? Will the EU? Will Russia, China, Africa? What are the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps going to do? And how bad are the hurricanes going to get? This season was supposed to break the records. So far it hasn’t, but there’s a couple tropical lows down there that could be headed our way after this one.” Bonar shrugged. “Just too many variables, Admiral. This could give us thirty more years. But after that, we’ll have the same problem all over again.”
“Thirty might satisfy Congress,” Dan told him. “They don’t think any farther ahead than the next election, anyway.”
He rubbed his chin again, staring at the image. He was tempted to set the problem aside. Let the next supe worry about it. But that was what every previous occupant of his office had done.
He sighed. “Okay. I need a more detailed presentation of both plans, okay? Both moving across the river, and the levees-and-reservoirs concept. If I can present the Budget Office with a ridiculously expensive permanent fix, and a second-best but cheaper Band-Aid, they might approve number two, at least. I don’t know about relocating the cemetery, though.… See if we can figure out a way to avoid moving Arleigh Burke.”
Bonar nodded. “I’ll need help. Architects. Engineers. Environmental lawyers. I don’t have the budget—”
“I have that discretionary account.” Dan sighed. “If it isn’t for long-range planning, I don’t know what good it is.”
His phone chimed. A text from Blair. I want to take you to a movie.
The public works director closed the hologram. It shimmered for a microsecond, like a vision of what might be; though Dan had a hollow feeling it might not. Then it vanished, leaving him feeling bereft. Cheated of a future that could have been, in an empty room that smelled of damp mold and ancient paint.
Walking back to the Lower Yard, he stopped on the bridge across College Creek. Leaned on the railing as a rowing shell stroked toward him. A chill wind whipped off the Severn. He shivered despite the bright day. Each varsity boat was named after a former team member, usually one fallen in combat. The coxswain, perched in the stern, spotted him and ventured a salute. Dan saluted back. As they passed beneath, he yelled down, “Beat Army!”
“Beat Army, sir!” the rowers roared back, twisting on their benches to look up.
Dan grinned ruefully. Their faces were so bright. They looked so young.…
His phone chimed. It was Mynbury. “Yeah?” Dan said, resuming his walk. “What you got, Dean? Something break on the wires exam?”
“Sir, do you recall our tour? When you first reported in?”
What fresh hell was this? “Yeah. Why?”
A pause as Mynbury spoke to someone else. Then, “Where are you right now, Admiral?”
“Uh, on the College Creek bridge.”
“Excellent. Excellent. Can you meet us at Hopper?”
Dan bared his teeth, not liking the dean’s tone. Was it the nuclear reactor? Or had the Astrophysics Division picked up a Manhattan-sized asteroid headed their way? “Shit, fuck,” he muttered, getting a startled response from a passing tourist. He started to break into a run, then checked himself. The supe, in uniform, a decorated combat veteran with steel nerves, sprinting through the Yard? It would incite panic.
He made it a brisk walk instead, praying that whatever it was, it wasn’t as bad as he could imagine.
The conference room was high in Hopper, overlooking the river. Looking out and down, Dan caught a YP making a cautious approach to the seawall.
He turned back to the three stern-faced men, and one very scaredlooking mid, at the table. Dean Mynbury. The Cyber faculty head, Dr. Jason Schultz. And, rather unexpectedly, Master Chief Donnie Wenck, from Dan’s own staff.
The mid, reed-thin and ashen pallid, bit savagely at his lips as he stared down at his lap. Twisting his hands. “Okay, what’s this about?” Dan asked them. “Master Chief?”
Wenck nodded to Mynbury. “I’ll let the dean start with the big picture, sir.”
The provost looked nearly as stressed as the mid as he explained.
Midshipman First Class Zachary Franklin, a twenty-year-old cyber/electronic operations and warfare major and a member of the USNA cyberwarfare team, had been cruising the Web the night before. To his surprise, he’d discovered what appeared to be a weakness in the operating software for the electrical grid in Kazakhstan. A back door into all the electrical systems across that Central Asian country.
“Unfortunately, and unknown to Midshipman Franklin at the time, Kazakhstan is intent on propelling itself into the big leagues. Improving their economy, converting to renewables instead of coal, and so forth. Moscow sold them new software to upgrade their grid.”
The provost looked at Schultz, the cyber prof, who took over. “But their engineers lacked the expertise to integrate that new programming. One tweaked the control program a little. But he got careless in the access credentials. Didn’t engage the full suite of controls. Left a hole in their security.”
“Open access to the power grid in Kazakhstan,” Dan mused, not seeing a problem yet and still hoping Mynbury had gone to general quarters over some nonissue. “Okay … you’re Franklin, right?”
The mid didn’t meet his gaze. “Yessir. Admiral … they must have just done the patch and neglected to engage all the security protocols. And no one else must’ve noticed. Yet.”
“Okay,” Dan said. “So why’s it our problem?”
Wenck said, “So Mister Franklin here, after he noses around in their software last night, realizes the gravity of the situation.”
The mid looked up pleadingly. “I wanted to help, sir! Anybody could have just gone in there and crashed their system. Install data-wiping or some other destructive malware … wreck their generators … overload their high-voltage substations … make the whole country go dark.”
Wenck said, “So he fixes it, then locks the door behind him as he leaves. He masks his entry to avoid detection, and heads back to his rack in Bancroft. Whistling, probably.”
“I wasn’t whistling, Master Chief,” Franklin said.
Dan passed a hand over his hair. “Uh, so far, I still don’t see the problem. Is there one?”
Dr. Schultz said, “The next morning, he calls me and explains what happened. When I realized how serious this was, I called Dr. Mynbury. We convened to decide what to do.”
Dan sat down. “I still don’t get it. Franklin here fixed their problem. I agree, he shouldn’t have screwed with their security, even if it needed it. But why do we have to do anything?”
Schultz looked grave. “This is serious, sir. It has potentially global implications.”
Dan looked to Wenck. “Donnie. In words of one syllable?”
Wenck said grimly, “The way he locked the door … it still allows him access.”
Dan sat back, instantly transitioned from puzzled to appalled. “Which means, if Franklin here wasn’t totally perfect in his masking—”
“Right. The fucking Russkis can trace it back to our server here at the Academy.”
Dan shook his head as they all stared at him. He’d anticipated surprises from the mids, sure. But this wasn’t getting drunk in town, or even conspiracy to distribute drugs. Screwing with a Russian client? On the other hand, looking at the trembling kid across the table, he had some sympathy. “You didn’t intend to cause any damage,” he told Franklin.
A violent shake of the head. The mid’s eyes shone; he was close to tears. “No, sir. I just thought, if somebody doesn’t fix this right now, bad things could happen. People could die.”
“But it wasn’t your responsibility,” Mynbury snarled.
Dan held up a hand. “Okay! It’s done. What I want to know is, can we sneak back in, somehow, and get our prints off this?”
“Not gonna be easy.” Wenck sighed. “Any attempt to go back in could trigger a trap. So when whoever finger-fucked with them came back in, they’d nail him. The Kazakhstanians might not be up to that, but the Russkis sure would. Being batshit paranoid, as usual.”
Mynbury said, “Is that what you want us to do, Admiral?”
Dan scratched his scalp. Several nasty avenues, decision chains where he could really step in it, were opening ahead. “Uh, we probably need to inform Cyber Command. Unless you already have.”
They exchanged glances. “So far, we’ve kept the lid on,” Schultz said tentatively. “Are you ordering us to tell them?”
Dan sat back, taking just a few more seconds before committing himself. If this shitstorm went up the line, heads would roll. And the first to be lopped would be that of a bright young officer who’d only meant to prevent a disaster.
The way, now and again, Dan Lenson had bent the rules to serve a larger good.
But … was it dishonest? After the lecture he’d just given his people, that same morning?
It didn’t seem exactly the same.
Especially if he laid his own head on the block, instead of Franklin’s.
“I’m ordering you not to,” he said. “You recommended, unanimously, that I pass this up the chain of command. I overruled you. Understand?”
Mynbury, of course, was first to comprehend. The dean smirked conspiratorially. “We recommended reporting it. You ordered us to stay quiet.”
“Exactly. Meanwhile, we bust ass. The PhD and the master chief here see if there’s a way to sneak in.” He glanced at Franklin. “Maybe you can help out. At least, learn what you did wrong.”
But for the first time in the years Dan had known him, the master chief looked uncertain. And suddenly, old. “I’m, uh, not sure I can, Admiral. To be totally fucking honest.”
This wasn’t good. “Well … when will you know?”
“I can take a look … but this code, it’s in Kotlin. It’s hard to fix bugs and I don’t know that code. Then the Kazakhi twidgets installed other patches on top of it. So if we fuck up, the whole country could lose power.” He shook his head. “I can’t promise I can fix this, Admiral. And if we fail … See, this system isn’t isolated. It’s connected. There’s a chance, like … If it crashes, we could take the whole Russian grid offline along with it.”
No one spoke. Dan wavered, uncertain. This could go down very badly indeed. For himself, the Academy, the Navy, the country. Could start a cyberwar. Or even a hot one.
So, what should he do? Wait for the shit to hit the fan? Tell Wenck to check it out? For how long? And meanwhile, what? Run it up the flagpole to cover his own ass? Which would crucify Franklin. Or maybe go to the State Department, come clean, tell the Kazakhs we were like some kind of white-hat hacker?
No, that would sacrifice the kid too.
Finally he said, “Well, check it out. Fast! Then get back to me, ASAP, and I’ll make the final decision.”
He swiped wet hair back again as they sat down to keyboards. Belatedly, guiltily, he remembered he had another commitment too. Speaking of reporting up the chain of command.
He was scheduled for dinner and a show with the secretary of defense that very night.