Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (44 page)

“Will I be alone, sir?”

“We recruited a crewmember onboard some months ago when we were tipped of the drug ring. Due to security reasons, I can’t give you his name, but he’ll make himself known to you when the time is right.”

“Security reasons, sir?”

“In the event that you should back out. Trust is a precious commodity in this case.”

“Who tipped us of the drug ring?”

“I’m sorry, that’s one of those need to know things, and you don’t need to know.”

Spurs looked back at the file. “There seems to be an urgency, even above these disappearances and deaths, sir. May I ask about that?”

“You may ask, but I can’t tell you. And not because I don’t want to. All we know is that our man aboard feels things are festering, getting ready to pop.” He pushed away from his desk and leaned toward her with his elbows on his knees. “You’ll be in danger from the moment you step on that ship to the time this case is solved. But don’t forget, we have two agents assigned overtly to the fleet on the flagship, the
Enterprise
. If you need more help than your contact can give you, go to them. But until then, you must report through that contact aboard the
Atchison
, understand?”

Spurs found herself daydreaming briefly. Her ex-fiancée, Doug Smith, was an F-18 pilot assigned to the
Enterprise
. She realized Burgess was staring at her, his question finally soaking in. “Oh, yes, sir.”

“You should find transcripts from all of the interviews the two fleet agents conducted with the
Atchison’s
crew. The two AWOLs’ families and one of the dead crewmember’s families were also questioned. You’ll find those reports in the file, too, along with a print-out summary on each member of the crew. Senior Special Agent Taylor will have your airline tickets and orders ready for you by 1300. He’ll give you a final briefing. Also, before you go, you’ll need to interview Ensign Charles Nader’s family.”

Spurs paged through some of the reports. “How many women are aboard the
Atchison
, sir?”

“None.”

She frowned, but Burgess continued. “But the good news is,” he said as he found a note placed by his phone, “before the
Atchison
shoves off, day after tomorrow, there’ll be twenty-three reporting for duty. It’ll be the first detail of women to serve on that ship.”

Spurs nodded and glanced at the file folder, and then back at Burgess, feeling dazed by it all. She had been eager to become an investigator, to be assigned a case, but undercover and aboard ship were more than she could have ever hoped for.

* * *

The airliner buffeted as it changed its heading, trying to skirt the foul weather ahead. Spurs smiled down at the white Navy uniform blouse on her lap.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

COMING ABOARD

May 1, 1530 -
US Naval Station, Rota, Spain.

THE FOUL WEATHER that had forced Janelle Sperling’s flight from Dulles to layover in London delayed her arrival in Madrid an additional eight hours. She was forced to take a later connecting flight to Rota. Sleep had come in nods and her once spotless and crisp polyester, summer-white uniform was smudged and wrinkled. She was pleased, however that even after nearly a year
and
five pounds, the blouse and skirt still fit nicely.

Spurs stepped out of the taxi, grimacing at the bright day. The morning’s menacing storm clouds had made way for a neon blue afternoon sky. She handed the Spanish taxicab driver an American twenty-dollar bill for a ten-dollar fare as he laid her bags in front of her.

“Keep it,” she said.

She turned away and plodded past the last freight building on Pier Six with her sea bag in one hand and a handbag in the other. The
USS Enterprise
suddenly loomed before her causing a flutter inside her chest. She dropped her bags then gaped up at the
Big E.

The massive warship was moored a stone’s throw out. Its nearly two hundred million pounds of steel and aluminum enclosed over a million pounds of human flesh as it floated high and proud. It was even more of an awesome sight than she’d expected, but as she looked at the tall, gray lady, she couldn’t help thinking about her ex-fiancée.

She scanned the enormous, gray superstructure from the water, up its tremendous hull to its flight deck, then to the top of its island in the ship’s middle, some twenty stories above the sea. Somewhere aboard the mass of metal was the Marine aviator she’d promised to marry more than five months ago.

She shaded her eyes with one hand and squinted at several groups of men leaning on the lifelines along the nearly quarter mile long ship. They were only tiny blue and white specs lining the side. It had been six weeks since she’d seen Lieutenant Doug Smith. While eyeing the huge flattop, she wondered if it had been another woman—or this ship’s sex appeal that had stolen him away.

Sighing, she turned to the
USS Atchison
tied off at the adjacent dock. Soon she’d become one of the first female members of the small, ancient frigate’s 217-
man
crew. The tiny ship’s purpose was to provide support and protection to the
Enterprise
, but from Spurs’ understanding, the vessel was so old and slow that its mission seemed almost in sympathy. She wondered if the
Atchison
wouldn’t serve her country better scrapped and made into something more useful like a trillion coat hangers or maybe a hundred train cars full of beer bottle caps.

She took a deep breath of musky sea air and narrowed her eyes. The next few weeks were sure to prove interesting. Something strange was happening aboard this ship.
Two men dead and two missing in the last ten days
.

There are accidents and people die and disappear in the Navy; it’s the nature of the beast. With what she had learned from Henry Dubain, and the fact that there had been so many accidents and disappearances over such a short period of time— from the same ship, this new problem seemed all too obviously related. Drug trafficking and missing crewmembers.

Even though she’d inherited a cocky confidence from her old sea-dog father, thinking of her very first undercover assignment brought back her queasy stomach and the shakes she’d felt when boarding the plane the morning before at Dulles. “He’s out of the chute,” she said aloud, thinking of her childhood calf-roping days. “Time to tie him up.”

Being a military brat, she’d been all over the world but never by herself—never
really
by herself. Of course, in college at Oklahoma University, in Officer’s Candidate School, and at NCIS training, she’d been alone—in a way. Then, at least, she’d shared the experience with her peers. This time would be much different. As she gazed up and down the last bustling dock on Pier Six in Rota, Spain, amid the clanking of steel, the fizzing of acetylene torches, the popping of arc welders and the whine of forklifts, she definitely felt alone.

She lifted her bags then staggered from their weight toward the ship. Looking over the
Atchison
and not paying much attention to the goings-on around her, she was startled by the warning honks of a swerving high loader. The big yellow forklift careened away at the last second and she stumbled back, falling to her butt spread-eagled over her sea bag.

“Idiot!” she said, frowning at the young heavy-equipment operator who drove away wearing a wide smirk while giving her a mock salute over his shoulder.

As an officer, it was important for her to maintain her composure, but her first urge was to show the smart-ass her middle finger, which she did shortly. Still grinning, the young seaman in blue fatigues gave her a nod before turning back to his business. She quickly stood up and brushed off her uniform while scanning the area to ensure that no one else had viewed her newborn-colt-like clumsiness. Then, grabbing up her bags, she headed once again across the pier to the
Atchison’s
berth, taking care to be more watchful.

She gave a brief visual inspection of what was to be her home for the next few weeks and wondered how the small ship would ride the waves and if her sensitive gut would hold up. There were sure to be storms, and the smaller the ship the more tossing it would do. The vessel she approached now was one of the smallest in the US Navy and barely large enough to be considered a
ship
. Orange rust streaked her hull, and much of the gray paint that wasn’t discolored had risen in cancerous bubbles with oxidizing steel underneath.

Spurs paused briefly at the foot of the gangway, leaned forward, hefting her sixty-pound sea bag over the right shoulder of her petite frame and then stomped up, squinting from the bright May Day sun.

Halfway up the thirty-foot incline, she glanced across the dock once again to the
Big E
, wishing somehow her assignment could be aboard that giant Cadillac of the sea. She would rather be chipping paint and swabbing decks on the huge, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier than be the new weapons officer of the bucket she now boarded. But the
Atchison
would have to do.

As in that first time in the rodeo, all eyes would be on her. She would have to prove herself again. Prove herself not only as an undercover Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent, but as a naval officer, and also as one of the Navy’s new battle-ready, seagoing WINS (Women in Naval Service). When she proved herself to the US Navy, then maybe she could finally prove herself to her father, Rear Admiral Oliver T. Sperling, USN, Retired. The last would be the toughest.

The Admiral
was of the old Navy. He stood firm against allowing gays into the military, blacks to achieve command rank, and women to serve aboard ships, especially warships. Not being a white, heterosexual male made her substandard, incapable, inept.

Spurs reached the upper platform and set her duffel bag and handbag on the gangway. She quickly straightened her blouse and skirt, stuffed a few unruly strands of her strawberry-blonde hair under her cap and stiffened to attention.

Turning to the US flag posted aft, she brought her right hand up knifelike and snapped a guidebook salute to the colors of her country.

The Officer of the Deck (OOD), a tall, slim lieutenant standing next to her, answered the salute then looked her up and down as she dropped her hand and turned to him. Once again, she cocked her arm and raised her fingertips to her temple.

“Request permission to come aboard, sir,” she sounded boldly, holding her hand steady above her brow as she waited for the OOD to return the greeting and allow her to step across to the
Atchison’s
quarterdeck.

The young lieutenant looked at her with a blinking frown and asked, “May I see your orders please, Ensign?”

The strong smell of fresh enamel paint made her small, freckle-splattered nose twitch as she pulled her orders from her left skirt pocket. While holding the salute, she shoved the papers to the OOD’s waiting hand. The three-page document mentioned nothing of her undercover duty. Not even the captain of the ship would be informed of the true assignment. Only her contact would know.

The lieutenant scanned her orders, and then studied her.

She noticed his blue eyes and long lashes. She’d learned in criminal psych class that eyes could be very revealing to an experienced investigator. They could tell many things about the person behind them; his honesty, integrity, humor, intentions. This man’s eyes were honest and bright. He could be a needed ally in the future. But while mentally critiquing the first member of the crew she’d met, she remembered something her mother had told her about eyes.

Sometimes they lie.

The officer’s questioning expression faded and his blue eyes seemed to smile even though his lips didn’t. She took note of his square jaw, sharp nose and high cheekbones and saw something familiar. Maybe she’d seen him when she was in the reserves or perhaps at her father’s retirement party six years earlier—probably someone who looked like him—it didn’t matter.

She noticed his summer-white uniform was impeccably clean, pressed and attended to without even the smallest
Irish pennant
or loose thread. Above a handful of ribbons over his left breast pocket gleamed a set of gold jump wings indicating that at some point during his time in, he’d been a parachutist, possibly in special ops. But he didn’t wear the special warfare insignia of a SEAL. Over that strong odor of paint, came just a hint of his Old Spice aftershave.

He saluted and returned her orders.

“Very well, Ensign Sperling. I’m Lieutenant Darren North.”

She remembered what Henry Dubain had said. This was the Lieutenant North that was “always watching you, like if you make a move you’re not supposed to, he’ll keelhaul you.”

Yes, it’ll be an interesting cruise, she thought, bringing her hand down smartly.

The young lieutenant continued, “The XO, Lieutenant Commander Reeves, wants all new personnel to report in to him. He’s topside in the Conn— on the bridge. It’s the same thing on this little ship,” North said, then his lips did actually curve into a smile as he gazed at her. He added, “Welcome aboard, Janelle.”

He offered his hand.

Surprised by his sudden cordiality, she took his hand warily.

“Thank you, sir,” she said and forced a courteous smile back.

He pointed to a clipboard lying on a small table. “Sign in, please.”

She stepped aboard, lifting her bags for the short distance and placed them by the table, then picked up the pen taped to a string attached to the clip-board and signed. Grimacing, she boosted her duffel bag up to her chest and swung it to her back and then grabbed up the handbag. Pausing, she thought of Dubain’s comment about Lieutenant Commander Reeves—”might be all right.”

Ignoring her complaining arms and shoulders, she stepped a
cross the deck. It wouldn’t be long before she would be afforded the opportunity to rest. With that in mind, she puffed determinedly and trudged toward the ladder to the bridge. After a day and a half in the air and in crowded airports, she looked forward to reporting in and being assigned her quarters. Somewhere aboard this ship, a soothing, warm shower waited just for her.

Walking to the metal stairway, she could still feel the weight of the young lieutenant’s gaze and she wondered if he still smiled.