Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (51 page)

A BRIEF TOUR

AFTER LEAVING THE captain’s stateroom, Spurs decided to have a look about the ship. She descended five decks to check out the engine room, taking a quick look at the two steam turbines that propelled the vessel. They appeared smaller than she’d expected, even for the
Atchison
, possibly even inadequate. It gave her an insecure feeling looking at them. She was impressed by their spotless appearance, however. The only grease she saw in the compartment was on the four leering sailors manning their stations. She wanted to take them aside and tell them why she was able to handle her job, why she could do it as well as anyone else. She felt the need to convince them, but telling wouldn’t help. She would have to show this crew. Somehow, she would show the whole damn crew that she was not an anchor to this Navy but as much of a propellant as both of the engines before her.

Three decks above on the way back up, she noticed a sailor on a four-foot stepladder painting some-thing above a hatchway with stencils, a brush and a can of paint. She stepped up to the little oriental seaman and saw that he was painting
WOMEN’S HEAD
in large black letters.

She smiled, finally feeling like there was something actually being done to acknowledge she was on board. The hatch stood open about a foot, but she couldn’t see inside and the curiosity finally overcame her. She reached up and tapped the seaman on the arm.

“Sailor,” she said.

Startled, the sailor gasped, the ladder tipped and the paint and man fell.

“Stupid son-of-a-bitch!” he said, falling back.

She grabbed him from behind, under his arms, preventing injury, but the paint spilled and now oozed out into a widening puddle.

The sailor’s dark blue cap ended up sideways, covering his left eye.

“Dammit!” he said trying to stand as he looked at the mess of black enamel, “Stupid son-of-a-bitch!” He turned to Spurs with his teeth clenched. “You are one. . . .” He paused as he straightened his cap and gaped wide. “Woman—lady.” He looked at her uniform. “WINS, officer . . . and I’m a stupid son-of
-a-bitch. Sorry, sir—ma’am.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. I’m most of those things,” she said, then looked at the paint. “I’m the one that should be sorry. Here, let me help you clean that up.”

She reached for some rags beside the ladder.

“No!” he said. He snatched up all of the rags. His English was perfect as he said, “That wouldn’t do, ma’am. It was my fault. I’m just kind of goosy. We weren’t expecting any female crew members for a couple weeks.”

“I’m here early, kind of an advanced party.” She smiled. “May I go inside?”

The young sailor looked at the hatch to the head then back to Spurs. “Oh, uh, sure.”

“Just for a look,” she said, feeling the need to qualify her request.

He nodded and smiled and she did the same.

She was disappointed when she stepped through the hatchway. Along one bulkhead were eight urinals. On the adjacent wall to her right were two toilets without stalls sitting out in the middle of nowhere, next to a double, curtain-less shower stall. On the opposite wall were two sinks with a small mirror above each.

She turned back to see the sailor watching her then looked back at the urinals.

“What’s your name, sailor?” she asked.

“Hwa, ma’am. Seaman first class. The guys call me Jitterbug, cause I’m so jumpy.”

“Well—
Jitterbug
. I’m Ensign Sperling. Tell me,” she asked still staring at the pissers, “where are the other women’s heads going to be?”

“This will be the only one, as far as I know, ma’am.”

“How about mirrors, stalls, more toilets and sinks?”

“Don’t know anything about toilet stalls or more sinks, ma’am. But as far as I know the mirrors stay,” he said.

“But when are those coming out?” she asked, pointing at the urinals.

“No plans for that, ma’am. My understanding was that the, uh,
necessary adjustments
would be temporary.”

Spurs twisted around to see if he was for real.

He smiled back sincerely. He was serious.

She stepped out of the head and grinned back. She held out her hand.

“Thanks for the tour, Jitterbug.”

He looked surprised and wiped his right hand on his blue shirt making long black streaks.

“It was a pleasure, ma’am.”

PROUD PARENTS

2230

SPURS SAT UP in the bottom bunk as the rocking of the world around her increasingly worsened. She’d moved her linen to that lower bunk, not wishing to be any further away from the ship’s center than necessary. She had lain down at 2130 but couldn’t sleep. Two things kept her from dozing: anticipation for the meeting she was to have at 0100 with the mysterious note writer and the increasingly rough seas.

Clinging to the top bunk above her, she swallowed several times trying to keep down the mostly bread supper she’d eaten. She wasn’t able to suppress it very long. The urge to vomit soon became overpowering and she staggered to the head, making it to the porcelain throne just in time to expel the two dinner rolls, a small chew of meat and the spoonful of green beans she’d had for the evening meal. Tomorrow she would only have crackers, she thought. Now her stomach was empty, but she was not hungry. A sip from a water glass was all she could consume. At first light, she’d ask Doc Jolly for some Dramamine patches.

There was no use trying to sleep any longer. Soon, it would be time to go to the signal bridge for the meeting.

She glanced at a Tupperware container in her locker. Inside it was a bundle of letters. Her thoughts drifted to the visit she had with Ensign Charles Nader’s parents back in DC, two short days ago.

* * *

The tall, elegantly dressed black woman stood in the doorway fingering a large, gold shamrock broach as she stared at Janelle Sperling.

“Mrs. Nader?” Spurs asked.

“Yes. Are you one of Charlie’s friends?”

“No, ma’am. I’m an investigator for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.” She pulled out an ID card that had been made up with her assumed name on it and showed it to her. “My name is Jill Smith.”

“Please come in,” Mrs. Nader said, pulling the door wide and stepping back.

Spurs walked in and followed her into a sitting room of the large, ornate, turn-of-the-century vintage, Victorian home. On a small tapestry upholstered sofa with Queen Ann legs was a graying, black gentleman and a pretty young black woman holding hands.

“This is my husband, Mike, and Charlie’s girlfriend, Sheryl,” she said, looking to them. “Honey, Sheryl, this is Miss Smith.”

“Jill,” Spurs said.

After being invited to sit, offered tea or coffee, and some pleasantries about the weather, Spurs got down to business.

“We’re not sure of the cause of your son’s death,” she said, setting a large tumbler of iced tea on a doily on the hand rubbed walnut coffee table in front of her. But officially, we’re calling it a suicide. . . .”

“Suicide!” Mike Nader leaped from his seat and rubbed his thick hair. He turned away. “My son would not—could not commit suicide.”

“We don’t think he did, either,” she said calmly.

He spun around to her seeming bewildered. “What do you mean?”

“He had cocaine in his nostrils. . . .”

“My son did not use drugs!” Mr. Nader blurted.

“Oh, not Charlie,” Mrs. Nader said.

Spurs sighed and nodded slowly, then continued what she’d started to say, “ . . . but none of the cocaine had been absorbed into his system.”

“Meaning?” Mr. Nader said. His tone was still harsh and defensive.

“Mike,” Mrs. Nader softly scolded, patting her husband’s hand.

Spurs said, “There should have been at least traces of cocaine found in his blood if he’d snorted it while he was alive. In other words, we are relatively sure that someone wanted it to look like he’d been on drugs. That someone put it in his nostrils after he fell to his death.”

The Naders and their son’s girlfriend glanced at one another.

“This still doesn’t rule out suicide, but it makes it a lot less likely.”

Mr. Nader looked puzzled. “So why are you calling it a suicide without finding out for sure?”

“We’re not, sir—that is unofficially. We feel that if we officially call it suicide, we can put an agent undercover and no one will suspect that we’re still investigating. It may give us a better chance to find out exactly what happened.”

“You don’t mean you’re going undercover?” Mrs. Nader asked.

“I can’t say, ma’am. Did Charlie have any enemies, or did he ever talk about being in danger, threatened or anything unusual happening?”

The couple looked at each other and then back to Spurs.

“No,” Mr. Nader said.

Mrs. Nader put her hand on his forearm. “What about the letters?” she asked.

Charlie’s father raised his eyebrows then walked over to a small roll top desk. He took out one of several bundles of letters. He brought them to Spurs and placed them in her lap.

“Whatever he told us since he’d been on that ship is in these,” he said. “He didn’t like to use the phone. Said it was a waste of money. You might find something of interest in one of them. The last one, maybe.”

Spurs smiled up at him. “Thanks.”

“It’s just a loan,” he said. “Charlie’s letters are all that’s left of him besides some pictures and memories.”

“I’ll be sure to take care of them. I’ll bring them back to you as soon as I can.”

He nodded.

Spurs spent the next twenty minutes talking to the Naders and looking at old photos of their son. Charles Nader’s fiancée seemed shy, not speaking unless coaxed, and, even then, her voice was quiet and shaky. It took very little for her eyes to tear up. When the young woman broke into sobs after coming across a photo of her and Charles on senior prom night, Spurs decided she’d imposed upon them enough. She stood up and they accompanied her to the door.

“Be careful, Miss Smith,” Mike Nader told her. He shook her hand. “But see what you can do to clear our son’s good name. It’s very important to us, as you can see.”

Spurs felt a warmth deep in her chest for this grieving family. “I’ll do my best.”

“Yes, do be careful,” Mrs. Nader said. “Charlie wouldn’t want someone getting hurt because of him.”

Spurs smiled back. She noticed Mrs. Nader rubbing the gold shamrock again. A small diamond glistened in the center. “That’s a beautiful broach, ma’am.”

Mrs. Nader looked down at it. “Thank you. Charlie gave it to me when he was in training in San Diego. It’s called
Mother’s Medal of Honor
. He gave his father a tie tack just like it.”

Spurs looked to Mr. Nader’s dark brown tie. A miniature version of the broach pinned it.

“Charlie was special, Jill,” Mrs. Nader said.

Then, for the first time without being spoken to first, Charles Nader’s fiancée spoke up. “He loved his country. He was a hero to us. Please don’t let him be remembered as some kind of a dope addict.”

Spurs patted the younger woman’s hand, and then hugged Mrs. Nader. “I won’t.” She nodded to Mr. Nader. “You can count on that.”

* * *

Spurs closed her locker and sat back on her bunk, thinking about Charles Nader’s dad. He must have been a very good father. She briefly compared him to her own father, the Admiral, and realized she’d never even shaken
his
hand. When she was a child, the few times the Admiral was around much, she couldn’t recall him ever kissing her, hugging her— or even touching her except to pick her up and place her in her mother’s arms when he was leaving.

MEETING THE STORM

00:50

THE WIND-
UP Baby Ben clock read ten minutes till one. Spurs sat on the edge of her bunk, swaying from side to side and slipped on her shoes. The signal bridge was only a three-minute walk, but Spurs wanted to be early. She stood, but paused, waiting for the floor to tip toward her cap hanging on the latrine door, then she quick-stepped to it. After spinning around as the deck tipped toward the doorway, she leaned back and took short, halting steps in that direction.

Outside her door, she made her way, zigzagging, pushing off from the bulkheads on either side of the corridor. When she reached Lieutenant Commander Reeves’ stateroom, she hesitated. Reeves was to be waiting in the shadows near the bridge as a witness and as protection, just in case. Mr. Note Writer could be a murderer just as easily as an informant. He could want to get rid of her instead of giving her information as the note implied.

Spurs listened at the door to see if Nick Reeves was stirring, but heard nothing. She tapped softly, not wishing to disturb the captain or any of the other officers in their surrounding staterooms.

With no answer, she tapped again and whispered, “Commander? Lieutenant Commander Reeves, are you awake?”

Still no hint of a reply, she touched the doorknob. Perhaps he was sleeping. He’d better not oversleep. She didn’t wish to do this alone. Looking up and down the empty, dimly lit passageway, she began turning the doorknob.

“Commander?” she whispered a bit louder, “Commander Reeves?”

She opened the door slowly. There was a light on in the room.

“Sir, are you awake?” Gradually, she pushed the door wider.

Now half open, she peeked inside and looked around. A lamp beside his bunk was on, but there was no sign of Reeves. She stepped inside, thinking he could be in the head, not wishing to disturb him, but also not wishing to go topside alone.

She shut the door in case someone might happen by and stepped toward the closed toilet door.

The ship pitched suddenly and Spurs staggered back. The small lamp beside the bunk flickered and went out, throwing the room into complete darkness as the head door began to open. The door banged against the bulkhead and Spurs felt something strike her foot.

The light blinked again and came on. The toilet was empty. The rough seas had caused the simple, hollow-core door to loosen from its jam and swing wide.

On the floor lay a pen, the thing that had struck her foot. She picked it up to set it in a pencil holder on the nearby desk and saw a notepad that Reeves had been writing on. He had made a list of women’s names, all but the last two crossed out; Bridgett, Gina, Carla, Yvonne, Delores, Nikki, Sasha, Kabran, Maria and
Janelle
. She decided it must be a list of first names of the officers in the WINS detail—her name included—for some kind of nametags, perhaps.

Spurs hoped Reeves was already on the signal bridge or at least on his way. She felt comforted knowing he would be there watching, then uneasy that he might not.

The ship’s rocking increased with every step she took toward the signal deck. Traveling to a higher part of the ship magnified the effects of the growing storm outside exponentially. She remembered how Commander Reeves had spoken about the “squall” just before they met. “It’ll be a good drill for the
legs
,” he’d said.

Spurs stepped into the Combat Information Center, where three sailors manned the fire-control consoles.

“Anyone been through here lately?” she asked.

Petty Officer Jabrowski was at the controls. He looked to her. “Good evening, miss,” he said. “No, no one’s been through either hatch for the last hour except the Officer of the Deck.”

“Who is that?”

“Lieutenant North, miss,” he said. “Anything I can do?”

Spurs shivered. Could it be North she was to meet and if so, was he a murderer or an informer? If it was North, he might try to do her in. Otherwise, if he just had information to give her, he’d had plenty of opportunities to do so before this.

“No thank you, Jabrowski.”

“Ski, miss,” he said, smiling. “Everyone just calls me plain old Ski.”

She forced a grin and staggered through the room to the hatch leading out onto the signal bridge.

As she placed her hand on the grab handle, Jabrowski rose and walked toward her. He said, “Be careful out there, miss. We’re in a
force eight
storm.” He took a black slicker swaying from a coat hook near the hatch and held it out. “Only essential personnel are allowed topside.”

“Thanks, Ski.”

As she reached her arms into the raincoat, she wondered about Ensign Nader on the night of his death. He’d been just outside of the CIC on the signal deck when he fell. He may have gone out through the very hatch she prepared to exit. Maybe Jabrowski knew something. He already seemed to suspect that she was an undercover investigator. She needed to know more. This was no time to be shy.

She turned to him. “Ski, were you on duty the night that Ensign Nader died?”

Ski lowered his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tell me about it, Ski.”

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said and took her by the arm and pulled her as far away from the others as he could. They stumbled to the bulkhead from the rocking and clung onto a horizontal I-beam support along the middle of the wall.

He whispered, “It was about 0130. The Ensign came in all excited. He seemed scared, worried maybe. He said someone was after him. He had a loaded gun. He kind of scared me, too. I’d never seen him like that before. He was normally real calm, pleasant in a serious sort of way.”

“What happened?”

“He was tired. Said he needed to hide out and get some sleep. That they would get him if he went back to his stateroom. He said he trusted me, but nobody else. He couldn’t be sure of any of the others, not even the captain. I told him to get between those two lockers over there,” he said pointing to a couple of gray wall lockers, “and I’d cover him up with a blanket. He didn’t say a word, he just crashed and I did as I said I would.”

Spurs noticed a kind of guilty look on Jabrowski’s face. “Tell me Ski, what happened?”

“You’ve got to understand me, ma’am, I was scared. There’d been a lot of bad things happening on the ship. It was just too weird.” He looked her eye to eye and swallowed.

“Go on, Ski,” she said.

“I called the captain. I didn’t want to bother him but I thought I’d better go to the top instead of through the OOD. Anyway, the captain didn’t answer. I figured he was probably sick again, so I buzzed Commander Reeves. He told me to try and disarm Ensign Nader when I was sure he was asleep. He said to buzz him back after I did. Nader was out like a light. I guess he hadn’t been sleeping much. I took the ammo clip out of his sidearm and I noticed he had another loaded magazine sticking halfway out of one of his pockets, so I took that out too.” Jabrowski’s eyes teared. “I’m sorry ma’am. I hope what I did didn’t cause Ensign Nader to get killed. He trusted me.”

“I don’t know, Ski,” she said, “but you’re doing the right thing now. What happened next?”

“Well, when I put the blanket back over Ensign Nader, he woke up. He seemed startled like he’d had a bad dream or something and he started babbling.”

“What was he babbling?”

“He said, ‘The
Enterprise
, it’s going to be the
Enterprise
!’ He said he had to warn them. That
they
would overhear the radio. He looked up and said something about the signal light and then jumped to his feet and ran to this hatch and left. I started to follow him, but decided I’d better call Commander Reeves back and tell him first.”

“Keep going,” she whispered, noticing the other sailors
taking curious glances at them.

“Well, Commander Reeves told me to sit tight and within a couple of minutes, he came in and asked where Nader was. I told him and so we both went outside and that’s when we heard a bunch of people down below and saw Ensign Nader lying there, dead.”

“Who was down there?”

“Let’s see, there was Doc Jolly, Seaman Wright, Big Track and Stemps, Lieutenant Goodman, Captain Chardoff and . . . ,” he paused, trying to remember, “Lieutenant North.”

“Why didn’t you tell the investigators this before?”

“Commander Reeves told me not to.”

She turned toward the hatch, then curious about one more thing she looked back. “Who was the OOD that night?”

“Same as tonight, ma’am. Lieutenant North.”

Spurs felt that chill again. She turned back to the steel door and opened it to a fire hose-like deluge of water. She stammered back one step with the rising deck, then flung herself out into the howling squall.

Nothing she had ever seen compared.

The
Atchison
fought the sea’s onslaught fiercely, listing to one side, then the other, pitching up like a rearing bronco, and then slamming down in a shuddering crash, sending white foam spraying. The steel lady finally submitted to a huge, vengeful wall of water pounding her topside and the torturous cycle repeated. The charcoal gray sky was indistinguishable from the sea except when brilliant flashes of lightning scribbled overhead and gave the turbulent sea the look of a giant, boiling caldron of black oil. This was not a good time or place to meet anyone but your maker. She had no choice, almost hoping the mystery crewmember would not show.

After nearly losing her footing on the deck and her hold on the hatch, she welcomed Jabrowski’s arms reaching out and steadying the hatch by the grab handle.

Spurs stepped around and shoved against the hatch—Ski, finally taking the hint, moved back in and closed and secured it.

She pushed herself away from the bulkhead, trying to time her movements, her steps, with the motion of the ship. Impossible. She stumbled to the middle of the bulwarks where she had spoken with Commander Reeves earlier, where Ensign Nader was said to have last stood.

Grabbing the rounded top, she held tight with her right arm, and then looked back at the ladders on each side of the deck. Sea spray splashed her face as she checked the time. The luminous dial of her watch read 0100.

A shadow ducked out of sight on the left ladder. Could it be Reeves or was it the informer? She was surprised to see movement on the right ladder, also. At least she thought she had seen something, possibly the top of a head as it ducked.

She waited, trading glances from one now empty ladder to the other. One must be Reeves, one the informer.
Why doesn’t he show himself
? She caught a glimpse of movement from the other side while watching the left stairway. Looking right, she thought she had picked up on it. The hatch. Had it moved, begun to open? No. She raised her eyes, then her face.

Thunder cracked. Lightning lit up the gray mass of steel. A man stood looking down at her from the radar mast, twenty feet above the hatch. He stared down with studying eyes, as stiff as a gargoyle, the lightning making his face glow. She hadn’t seen this man before.

Spurs waited for him to move, but he wouldn’t. She glimpsed to the ladders and thought she’d seen movement on the left again. The place was getting too damned crowded.

The man hanging onto the radar mast finally swung around one of the poles and leapt toward her on the mast deck above. She was amazed by his agility. He was no lubber—definitely a salt. He moved as if on stable land. Nearly to the end of the deck above her, he seemed to fall. No, he’d flung himself into a prone position above the hatch to the Combat Information Center and was now peering at her from the edge.

Spurs watched, clinging to the safety wall.

The man reached out with one hand, motioning her to come.

She looked to each ladder, not seeing anyone, hoping who she had thought she had seen before was Reeves or merely shadows and not people. The man that beckoned her didn’t seem to be a threat. He’d have to drop eight feet to the signal deck in order to reach her. It didn’t appear to be his intention.

Spurs released the wall as more sea spray assaulted her and burned her eyes. She took one step, stumbled, fell to her hands and knees, picked herself up nearly to her feet, fell again, staggered up, took short swift steps toward the hatch and finally fell into it. She held tight to the outside grab handle and straightened herself, then lifted her face. The man was directly above, his head, arm and shoulder hanging over the side. His face was frantic.

“NCIS?” he yelled over the wailing storm.

Spurs nodded, blinking the salt water from her eyes. “Who are you?”

“Gus Franken, Senior Chief Petty Officer.”

“Why the secrecy?”

“They’ll kill me if they know I’m talking to you.”

“Why?”

“I know what happened to Nader.”

“Tell me!”

“Two men, one real big son-of-a-bitch. Couldn’t see their faces, but I think I know who they were.”

Spurs frowned thinking of Chardoff. The ship pitched and hammered the sea with a terrific jolt, the water slapping the hull. She staggered, still gripping the handhold.