The Edge of Honor (64 page)

“From the look on your face, you’ve decided to go through with it,” he said without preliminaries, his face all business, a commander talking to a lieutenant.

Brian took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. I think—”

“No more time for thinking. Gimme the chits. Have Mr. Hudson do the premast investigation this morning.

I’ll schedule my XO’s hearing for sixteen hundred this afternoon and mast for oh-nine hundred tomorrow morning.”

“I gave the chits to the Sheriff, XO. To get them typed up.”

The exec stared at him. “Is that so. Very well, sign the smooths and give them to the chief personnelman for processing.”

“Aye, aye, sir. XO—”

“That’s all, Mr. Holcomb.” The exec turned on his heel and left. And so it begins, Brian thought. It’s back to Mr. Holcomb and the deep freeze.

Standing on principle could be a chilly experience. He went back to his stateroom to drudge through some paperwork. He was rereading Maddy’s last letter and imagining the feel of her hair when, after about an hour, his stateroom door rattled around on its hinges.

“Come in, Boats.”

The boatswain opened the door and lowered his head as he entered. “You wanted to see me, Boss?”

“Yeah. Let’s go find some coffee. I need some advice.”

“That I got. Prolly worth what it’s gonna cost ya, but advice I got.”

They went to the wardroom for the familiar coffee routine, then stepped out onto the weather decks into a blaze of sunshine and cool fresh air.

The seas were relatively flat, with only a few whitecaps showing from the beginnings of the northeast monsoon winds. The water was a deep blue, reflecting skies that appeared to have been cleansed by the typhoon. The ship still drove along at twenty knots for helicopter operations. Three men on the leeward side were replacing the snaking in the forecastle lifelines, so they walked over to the windward side and stood by the rails, inhaling fresh sea air.

“You heard about the three guys in missile plot last night, right?”

Brian began.

“Oh yes, sir. Whole ship’s done heard about it. Word’s out there’s gonna be a mast case even.”

“Yeah. That’s my doing. The XO asked me nicely not to write ‘em up, but I think it’s time to draw the line on this dope stuff.”

“Long’s you ain’t drawin’ that line on yer ass, if you don’t mind my puttin’ it that way. Word is that the XO’s pissed off about the report chits.”

“Word’s pretty well informed. And if that’s how it goes, that’s how it goes. He’s a commander and I’m a lieutenant. But I’m also a department head, and I’m not going to tolerate these people in my department, guys who’ve supposed to be ready to fire missiles or shoot guns or launch torpedoes, being drugged on duty at sea.”

“Yes, sir. I hear that.”

“But my question is this: What’s likely to happen now?”

“Well, standard mast case. XO’ll hold his screen hearing, listen to the Sheriff read the report chit, listen to the witnesses to the crime, listen to the bad guys’ division officer and their chief as to what kinda guys they are, and then he’ll bump it up to captain’s mast, seem’ it’s a serious offense.”

“And then?”

“An’ then the Old Man will hold mast on all three together, most likely, since they was doin’ it together, and he’ll—”

“Yeah, that’s my question. What will he do?”

“Well, this Old Man, he’s usually sorta lenient, you know? He’s as like to talk to ‘em as bust ‘em, fine ‘em, and restrict their asses.” I

Brian glanced up at the bridge windows but could see only the reflections of the bow waves shimmering in the green glass. If the captain was there, he was invisible.

“But the Navy’s policy on drug use aboard ship is that they get court-martialed and discharged,” Brian said.

“Yeah, but the Old Man, he don’t have to do that, he don’t wanna. Yer talkin’ about the max he can give ‘em, but he can let ‘em go, he wants to. Ain’t likely, but he can.”

Brian thought for a minute. It had not occurred to him that the captain might just let them go with an admonishment, but, of course, he could.

Punishment at captain’s mast was governed in terms of maximum limits on what could be imposed, but there were no minimums.

Maybe that was one of the reasons the XO didn’t want to go to mast—suppose the captain just chewed their asses and let them go.

Everybody in the crew would be reaching for a roach within the hour.

“Course, you ask me,” the chief was saying, “I figger they’re gonna get their butts flown off a here on the next log helo to one a the bird farms and then sent back to Hukapino land for a court-martial. But, like I said, it’s up to the Old Man. It’s his mast.”

Brian was coming to hate that refrain. It’s his boat. It’s his policy.

And it’s his fault that we’re even talking about this.

“What I’m wondering, Chief, is whether or not it will make a difference—if these guys get thrown off the ship, will that deter others?”

The chief scratched his head. “I dunno, boss. That’s kinda hard to say.

There’re kids in this here crew that’d like nothin’ better than to git a discharge and go back to the world. There’s others, got wives, kids, you know, bills to pay. A discharge, some brig time’d be a real no shitterfor’em.”

The SH-2 helicopter lifted off the flight deck behind them and clattered into the morning sky. Almost at once, the ship began to slow and the word was passed to secure from flight quarters. The fresh breeze across the forecastle began to die down and veer as the ship came about.

“Well, I hope it does. I think I’m pretty much alone on this one, and it’d be nice to think it was doing some good.”

The chief looked sideways at him from under his tattered ball cap. “You doin’ this to make some kinda statement or you doin’ this because it’s the way you gotta do it?”

“This probably sounds like the Boy Scouts, but I just think this is the right thing to do, Chief.”

“Well, all right, then. That’s all there is to it. That’s what officers’ s’posed to do: the right thing.”

“You make it sound easy, Chief.”

“Doin’ it is easy, boss. It’s jist the ‘after’ that can get noisy sometimes.”

Jackson looked up as Lieutenant Holcomb knocked and came through his office door. Jackson had had the ship’s office type up the report chits, then called Lieutenant Holcomb down to sign the typed versions. Holcomb sat down and read through them, looking at his watch as he started: 1110. He had to be on watch in thirty minutes.

“It’s the priors that decided me,” Brian said as he signed each form on the accuser block, all thoughts of his talk with Jackson last night banished from his mind.

Jackson was keeping his face neutral. “All three of ‘em had priors.

These guys aren’t going to stop doing dope just because they got caught again. This is the essence of a screw-you crime.”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said. “And the whole crew’s talking about your taking them to mast.”

“Tell me about it. I’m already getting the cold shoulder from the XO.

Officers’ call was not a pleasant experience this morning. You any closer to the guys who count?”

“We might be. You want to shut that door? Okay. I’ve been sort of shadowing one EM One Wilson, and I think he’s getting a little nervous.”

“How do you ‘shadow’ somebody in a ship?” Jackson grinned. “Just be there, like the song says.

He’s an electrician, so he does jobs all over the ship. The chief electrician keeps me informed as to where he’s going to be working, and I just, well, come around.

Except in the main spaces—too damn hot down there for me. But I come around the electrical shop, and I stand to one side at Engineering Department quarters in the morning, or in the chow line at noon meal, or at the back of the movie in the evening. And I just sort of look at him.

He’s feeling it, believe me. And we have another development.”

“The money.”

“Yes, sir, the money. Three of those marked twenties have shown up. And all three of the people who passed them are on Garlic’s loan list.”

“Did you go see Garlic’s list?”

“No, the senior chief of the mess did. He does it every month, anyway, to make sure nobody’s getting in too deep. Of course, Garlic’s the kind of guy to keep two lists, but I don’t care now. He loaned marked money— which means it’s at least possible that he’s the bank for the dopers.”

“And you’ve told the exec all about this?”

“Uh, no, sir. Not just yet. I’m waiting until I develop a little better, uh .

“You don’t want the XO telling you to stop it, right?”

Jackson looked at him. “If he did—”

“If he did, it might mean something a whole lot more sinister is going on around here than we thought.”

“Yes, sir, it sure as shit could. But I can’t feature this XO or this CO being dirty. There’s just no way.”

“Yeah, I agree with you. Wanting to keep the scope of the problem under wraps to get through the cruise is one thing. That would keep everybody’s reputation intact.

That, I can feature. But still …”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Holcomb, nobody in this ship has ever stood behind me when I wanted to go after the really bad guy, the kingpin—until you came along.”

“My standing by you might not be the best thing in the world for you right now, Chief,” Brian said with a wry grin. “Right now, I’m old Mr. Farts in Church.”

Jackson did not smile. He leaned forward. “We’re getting closer, Mr. Holcomb. I know we are. And I haven’t told anybody about what we’re doing except you, but I want to tell Martinez. This shit could get heavy, and he’s just the guy to have along, something goes down.

The senior chief knows I wanted some information, but I told him not to ask me any questions. I think the next step is for Martinez and me to do a little visitation on Garlic.”

“What’s your angle going to be?”

“He gives us the source of those twenties, he doesn’t take a fall for drug-money laundering, and he gets to stay in business.”

“You probably can’t tie him in any legal sense to drug money laundering.

He could have come by those twenties anywhere. Depending on how smart he is, that might blow up in your face.”

“Then he becomes a boiler inspector.”

Brian shook his head at the thought of Martinez squeezing three hundred pounds’ worth of Garlic Wolcezjarski through the burner register of an offline boiler’s firebox. They’d have to take the front fire walls down.

Hell, they’d need a crane. It was time for watch.

“Okay, Chief, I’ve gotta split. Another wonderful six hours in Combat as the main man of Red Crown. I guess I’ll see you next at captain’s mast tomorrow morning.”

“Looking forward to it, Mr. Holcomb.”

Brian took over the evaluator watch at 1145 from Vince Benedetti, who had also heard about the report chits and the upcoming mast case. When they had completed the operational briefing, Vince had paused for a moment before heading down for lunch.

“Really gonna do it, huh?”

“Done done it. It’s time, Vince. Hell, you should know that.”

Vince shrugged. “Good luck, man,” was all he said.

Garuda was more enthusiastic.

“Look at that scope, will ya, Mr. H.,” he said. “The Heavenly Host is up and runnin’, we got helo ops scheduled for most of the afternoon, we got BARCAP on the line, two carriers turnin’ and burnin’ on Yankee Station, the Wager Bird relayin’ for the world up on Green, two recce flights on the boards this afternoon, flat calm frig gin’ seas, the Air Farce is gonna run a strike package in from Thailand, and we got three dopers on horseback with ropes around their necks. Crown is back in business, regular Navy, just the way I like it.”

Brian grinned. Garuda would spend the whole cruise on Red Crown station if he could have his way, with maybe an occasional weekend in Subic for a San Magoo.

He had his WETSU ball cap on and was in generally fine fettle, smashing buttons on his console and chewing various asses in the Cave on the intercom. The scope was indeed filled with air tracks, and the PIRAZ controller had his hands full.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got some things on my scope that aren’t on your scope.”

“Yes, sir,” Garuda said. “I heard about that. We gonna finally do it regulation Navy. Personally, I think it’s about time, although I suspect you’re not number one on the hit parade right now.”

“Depends what you mean by ‘hit.’ “

Garuda laughed. “I hear that. Mast is always a crap shoot. We haven’t had anybody go to mast for drugs since I’ve been here, and this captain is kinda light even on the regular criminals. But he’ll do what he’s gonna do. Your biggest problem now is the watch bill. If those three shitbirds fly away tomorrow, who sits the consoles down in plot—the chiefs?”

“The chiefs sit the consoles up here in Combat. I’ve still got one first class, and since Marcowitz went down in flames, that leaves me FROM Three Warren as the next senior guy, then about a half dozen nonrated guys after him. They’re just going to have to learn fast.”

Garuda reached for his coffee mug and a cigarette.

“Long as the Migs stay in their box, don’t pull any more a that raid shit, won’t take much to hold her together.

Warren’s a good kid; he’s just green. Long’s you’ve got a chief and first class up here in Combat, the kid on the console can be walked through it, they have to.”

“If there’s time, and if everything works. Actually, if everything is working, the guy on the console down below has nothing to do. Where they become important is when the system faults out or drops track. Then the guy in plot can save your ass, because he’s the only one who can actually see the track-radar video.” They were by a call from CTF 77 on Air Force Green, confirming the impending reconnaissance run. Brian called the captain to report the run and received a curt acknowledgment.

He hung up the bat phone, an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Word travels fast.

Garuda came back to the problem of bringing the junior missile techs up to speed. “What we should do if these three dopers go bye-bye is put one of the chiefs down there in plot for a couple of hours each watch and let him hold school call on the greenies. We can run a bunch of missile-tracking drills from up here in Combat, walk ‘em through the gray areas, and hopefully not bust the Spooks in the process.”